


no refunds!

by vistalune



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fake Dating, Fake Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, Fluff, KuroKen - Freeform, M/M, Metaphors, Pining, Pretend Relationship, Slow Burn, Textfic, catching feelings, eventual angst, kenma and hinata are best friends, kenma is easily embarrassed, kuroo and bokuto are crackheads, neither of them know how to deal with feelings, past and slight levken, pretend dating, side bokuaka, side kagehina, stuff about flowers and roads, very cliche, weird descriptions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 58,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27007192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vistalune/pseuds/vistalune
Summary: “why don’t you look at ads on craigslist?”kenma gets up from the couch while the slight adrenaline rush is still surfing on his blood, deciding that maybe hinata was right. if he couldn’t take him or kageyama, maybe it was best for him to get a complete stranger after all. he was nineteen — this was the perfect age to do something fucking outrageous and then have a cool story to tell when you’re older, like pretending to date some random dude from craigslist.and it was going to be a bad idea, he knew that, but kenma had been backed into a corner and had nowhere to really run to.well, he did, but there was no way he was going to risk kissing hinata shouyou during the holidays....or, kenma swore relationships were a waste of time, kuroo loved the holidays, and hinata was...well, hinata.
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 73
Kudos: 178
Collections: My favorite haikyuu fics





	1. not desperate

**Author's Note:**

> hello!
> 
> if u remember i had a rivals to lovers au that i put out but i wanted to change the ship to bokuaka so i took it down for now! instead i have written this kuroken fake dating au with some very cliche tropes in mind i promise i won't delete it this time ;-;
> 
> yes this is based on that one ad lmao
> 
> if you've read my other fake dating au before coming here please know that this one will have a few similarities in it in terms of 
> 
> \- kenma and hinata are best friends  
> \- his mom kinda caused this
> 
> but other than that, it's different. if you're okay with those similarities and you're still here, then i hope you enjoy it ^-^
> 
> this isn't my first time trying out a haikyuu au but the same disclaimer still applies! please bear with me if things don't match up, are too unrealistic, etc. ;-; let me know and i could always rewrite! this is kind of a premature beginning and i don't really know the direction i wanna take this but i have a basic idea so we'll build off of there!
> 
> my twitter is @kaashihq if you guys wanna be friends, or if you'd rather not, my cc is in my profile here. i hope you enjoy this! it's really fun to write so i hope you have fun reading it!
> 
> p.s. characters are aged down to help with connections! instead of being in their late twenties they’re just in their late teens
> 
> p.p.s. kenma has siblings in this fic for the sole purpose of added stress and embarrassment regarding kuroo - they're made up and significantly minor! sorry if that's weird, i know he's an only child canonically but it's just for fic purposes!

_hello!_

_really quick - this story is completely fictional and meant for entertainment purposes only!_

_everything is entirely made up, and the canon characters that mine are named after have nothing to do with how they really are. i wrote this solely for your enjoyment (hopefully!) and for me to have something to pass the time with._

_please have fun with this, and thank you for everything!_

_\- bette_

~❀~

It’s not that Kozume Kenma was desperate for a boyfriend.

 _Really_ , he wasn’t. Anyone familiar with him knew more than enough how _okay_ Kenma was with being single.

He was perfectly content with being by himself for the rest of his life if he could, playing Daxter on his PSP until dusk peeked behind the horizon at him and silently yelled for him to finally go to bed. He was good with not having to deal with the stress of trying to keep another person by his side, to talk to them for more than five minutes at a time, or getting pushed out of his comfort zone for so long, just for them to probably break up later and fracture his heart to where it wouldn’t work the same again after that, no matter how many relationships he gets into.

He’s heard so many stories of people getting married, only to find out they didn’t love each other the same way they did when they first met too late down the road. And then they get divorced. 

Or _worse_ \- married again.

In other words, Kenma did not believe in love and knew that life didn’t stop for anyone no matter what, that it would keep going and he would die anyway, so he might as well waste no time and do what he wanted, keeping up with the drag of the world and stopping for nobody, either. 

And he knew it was selfish, but he would just rather be by himself.

It was more of the fact that he was desperate for _any_ opportunity to keep being left alone when he goes to his family’s house in November.

The holidays— the time of the year when pretty reds and delicate orange watercolor splashed the leaves that fell from trees, when it felt like the world was slow and infinite in the way time seemed lackadaisical, when the breezes that billowed from the north drummed warmth into his chest in the afternoons — felt like it couldn’t come fast enough. 

One of Kenma’s favorite times of the year had quickly become his most dreaded, and despite brushing his mother's questions off about where his boyfriend is, or fiance _(husband, maybe?)_ last time, he couldn’t help but think about her since then. She was constantly in his head after those awful three weeks, her voice like a patch of steel wool sitting in the back of his brain, scratching up his thoughts and ruining his nerves raw the more time passed. 

And the fact that she asked in front of _everyone,_ bringing their attention to him and causing judgments to silently settle on his shoulders while he blushed like red stop lights made him want the earth to spontaneously open up and swallow him whole so he wouldn’t have to deal with the post-humiliation of replaying that scene in his head until he got over it. 

In front of his cousins and siblings? 

Maybe it was because that wasn’t the first time she asked, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last, but _fucking hell._ He was nineteen already. Didn’t she think if he wanted a partner, he’d have one already? Didn’t she think that _maybe_ she should stop asking because it was weird to be so invested in your kid’s love life?

Didn’t she _think?_

Kenma wasn’t new to people always wanting to know more than they should about him, and he knew it was mean to actively try and keep his business to himself - because it was _his_ business - but he couldn’t help but think that he should open up more. It wouldn't be so bad. He was _very_ enigmatic (but if you asked, he would tell you it wasn’t true), shadows trailing alongside him wherever he walked, his dyed hair surrounding his head so nobody would see his face and ask him if he was okay. 

He was okay. Just didn’t like talking so much, and that was okay, too.

The only person who he really gave a shit about was Hinata, but even then, he sometimes felt like a bad friend when Hinata would show up at his doorstep, cheeks dusted with a gentle shade of rose from both the run to his apartment and all the things he had to shout about, starting with _Kenma! Why didn’t you text me back? Do you hate me?_

And Kenma would say yes just to be annoying, Hinata would make a dying whale sound out of his collection of many that reverberated around his apartment and sank into the walls as if it were made for housing Hinata’s voice only, and Kenma would go out with him to make it up, a small smile plastered on his face as he listened to Hinata excitedly tell him about his day.

Kenma _also_ thought about just bringing Hinata to his family’s holiday dinner, as well. 

What was the harm? 

The two were very good at being a pair, at being together. They’d spent countless hours with each other and were rarely apart. If Hinata was alone, he would always be asked about Kenma, and vice versa. 

Having known each other since their first year of middle school, Kenma has learned that it was sometimes okay to let people in. 

But only sometimes. 

And despite having regrets about middle school, Hinata definitely wasn’t one of them. 

He’d known Kenma like the back of his hand, the ins and outs of all of his quirks, how to make him laugh and what he was feeling based on the shift of his eyebrow, or how quickly he looked away from people. Kenma had always been thankful for Hinata, anyway, to have someone other than himself that he could rely on, that didn’t mind his quiet nature and liked to listen to him, too, even if he didn’t have anything to say. Hinata loved him like it was nothing, like it was routine, despite all of his silence and vastness and intimidation, and it made the butterflies in his stomach dance to see him beaming every day, despite knowing him for the past 6 years.

Kenma didn’t like relationships because he didn’t want to juggle another person in his life. 

But Hinata would be the first and only exception.

Ever.


	2. okay, maybe a little desperate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello ^-^
> 
> sorry for the late chapter!!! i have school so it’s kinda taking up a lot of my time but i’ve been writing this and liking it so far!! i hope that you do too!
> 
> also thank you very much if you’re still here!! i appreciate the kudos and comments, they are very motivating! i was kind of in a writer’s block?? to where i felt like i couldn’t write the same as i used to with previous aus?? but the more i write this one the better i feel and it’s been really fun to write so i hope that you like it as well!! 
> 
> thank you so much again ahhh i know it’s just fanfiction and it’s not a big deal at all but i enjoy writing, and it makes me really happy to see that you like it ;-; so thank u!!
> 
> ANYWAY enough rambling please enjoy!

Here he was, on a Friday night, contemplating his mother’s questions for what seemed like the nth time since November of last year, sitting cross-legged on his small couch with cushions made out of the roughest material he had ever felt, wondering exactly what would make her not ask had he show up again this year.

And he _knew_ the answer, but he just wasn’t reckless enough to go the direct route, and he decided that trying to find alternatives was good for keeping his mind from going into overdrive.

It made his chest feel weird, nerves lacing around his heart and anxiety draping from his ribcage the more he thought about his absent partner and just how quickly the time would come before he really knew it.

Why couldn’t she just leave him alone?

He takes a huge breath in that makes his stomach ache before his eyes flick back to the small television screen he’d been in front of, the redundant, yet domestic theme of Super Smash trying its best to coax him out of his own head. The controller in his hands felt like a stupid piece of plastic and the game felt even dumber, not interested in playing anymore as the daunting task of trying to find a boyfriend for November loomed over him like storm clouds.

He was so fucked.

Through his silent arguments between his head and his imagination, rhythmically tapping on the joystick of his controller to help him think, the doorbell rings and snaps his train of thought in half, and Kenma wants to groan at the intrusion, but there’s literally only one person that knew where he lived, and his roommate wouldn’t bother to come over without him unless it was incredibly, _life savingly_ important.

So he doesn’t groan. Instead, he gets up, a bit of giddiness in his heart at the thought of seeing Hinata tonight.

It’s only been two days, but he thinks it would do him good.

“Kenma~!”

His name reminds him of the taste of strawberries in the way Hinata says it when he opens the door for him, his eyes bright and housing the stars from the empty night sky behind him. He feels daisies bloom in his chest at Hinata’s excitement, and he couldn’t help but smile back at him. 

Kenma sometimes likes to think that Hinata was found in the way the sun burned during the day, blazing and imminent, and himself how the moon glows over their idle town once night falls. They completed each other in an almost perfect way, and Kenma doesn’t think there was anyone else he’d rather have in his apartment raiding his fridge, or bouncing on his couch while making popcorn in his microwave and telling him about his day, radiating throughout his small apartment and shedding light in the dark corners of the ceiling. 

There wasn’t anyone else Kenma would rather give a piece of his heart to in exchange for his own.

He loved Hinata.

“So! Did you figure out what you’re going to do about the holidays?” Hinata asks, lying upside down on Kenma’s couch across from him and kicking his sock-covered feet in the air from where his legs rested on the back of the couch, the question completely breaking down the remainder of the silence that Kenma had built up before he’d gotten here. “You only have like, two months before November, you know.”

He immediately feels dread creep up over his shoulders as he shakes his head, his television screen replaced with the selection of B-rated horror flicks Netflix had to offer, but he couldn’t really focus on it now. 

He hadn’t really heeded the threat of losing time that much before Hinata had said it out loud.

Two months was not enough time at all.

He looks to his feet and tries to find his thoughts in the stripes of his fuzzy socks, eyes trailing over all of the black threads that he could pull out and throw away, giving him some sort of distraction before he got back to the question.

He ultimately comes up short and he wishes Hinata had asked about _literally_ anything else.

“Honestly...I think I’m just gonna skip it this year.” Kenma’s voice is soft as he lightly bites on his bottom lip that had been a little chapped since Hinata got here, and he blames it on the stress.

He flicks his tongue over them as Hinata gasps lightly and sits up as best as he could, looking at him from where his head was nearly touching the floor, hair disheveled from gravity messing with it.

“Miss your family dinner? Terrible son.” He shakes his head with a frown, brown eyes squinting up in mock disgust.

“What else do I do?” Kenma asks, and suddenly, he’s triggered, getting lost in the worst-case scenarios that he could think of when the holidays come.

He’d be humiliated if and _when_ she asks again and he shows up alone, would probably sweat right through the nicest button-down shirt he could find at his local thrift store and ruin the quality, making him suffer even more throughout the dinner. Or maybe, he’d be walking down the stairs right when she asked, and the question would scare him so much that he goes into shock and falls down the stairs and literally _dies_ right in front of his family _._

The muffled pops from the microwave bring him back down to earth from where he was caught in his cowardly (and strikingly vivid) imagination, reminding him that he is home still, on the couch with Hinata, with no stairs in sight.

And then he thinks that maybe he’s being a little too dramatic.

Maybe.

He sighs. 

“You literally just went through the five stages of grief in front of me. I saw your face.” Hinata tells him, sitting up quickly on the couch to speak to him, hands gripping the cushions he was sat on as if he would fall over if he didn’t. “What are you thinking about?”

”I am screwed, Shouyou.”

The blood had rushed from Hinata’s head too fast and he feels a headache gently hammer at his temples, opting to lean against the back of the couch instead, careful not to rub the back of his hands on the cushion beside him. 

“Why don’t you just take me?” He offers, his voice holding almost exhaustion as this wasn’t the first or second or fifth time he’s come to him with this problem. 

Kenma was stuck and Hinata always blurted out the first thing that came to mind - himself. 

He sees Kenma’s eyebrows knit together, telling him he was nowhere near convinced as he begins to worry again, so he comes up with something else to take his mind off the intrusion. 

“What?” Hinata simpers, almost mischievously. “You don’t wanna kiss me in front of your _mom?”_

Kenma nearly chokes at that, eyes blowing wide as another blush creeps across his face at his comment, at how easy it was for Hinata to say something like that. He’s never _seriously_ thought about it, but hearing him say it _makes_ him think about it. And now he wished he hadn’t.

What the hell.

“S-shouyou, how can you say that with a straight face?” Kenma makes a face and unconsciously curls in on himself as if Hinata actually was serious, making him giggle.

Either it would go too well and he’d _really_ have to kiss him in front of his mom to subtly prove he was romantically interested in someone, or he’d get embarrassed as quickly as they showed up and have to excuse himself to the bathroom, hiding out with his PSP until his family went on a search party throughout the house for him.

Both sounded like terrible times. A hard pass on either.

“Come on, Kenma,” Hinata says, and the microwave beeps loudly and sends Kenma’s heart skipping as Hinata practically flies off the couch into his small kitchen. “The holidays are right around the corner. You’ve gotta seriously think about this.”

Kenma sighs so loud he thinks it could’ve rattled the windows had he taken a bigger breath, leaning against the back of the couch as worries swarmed his head like bees to honey. His mom, his date, his embarrassment, his denial.

You know, typical things to worry about.

Kenma scrunches his nose as an itch settles on his skin. “Hey, what if I just take Kagey—”

“Nu-uh.” Hinata comes back into the living room with a blue plastic bowl filled with popcorn just to cut him off, his fingertips slick and his cheeks puffed with a mouthful of it. 

Kenma quirks his eyebrow as Hinata sits back on his spot, placing the popcorn bowl in between them, and Kenma wonders if it would spill had he moved the wrong way. 

He tries to sit still.

“Why not? We know each other well enough, and...maybe he’d say yes.”

“He would say no.”

“How do you—”

“I forbid it.”

Kenma pulls his lips into a tight line, his skin feeling like a million mites were crawling right underneath it at the unspoken barrier that settled itself between Kenma and his potential ticket out of embarrassment. He kept running into walls that he knew were there, but just thought maybe he could get over them had he tried hard enough. 

And while Hinata shoves another handful of popcorn into his mouth, Kenma convinces himself that there was no way he could take Kageyama instead, anyway.

He would definitely say no.

“Why don’t you look at ads on Craigslist?” Hinata asks him, one hand reaching for the bowl (that was desperately close to the edge), the other scrolling through movies absentmindedly. 

Kenma immediately makes a face at the back of his head because he was desperate but he wasn’t _that_ desperate. A Craigslist ad? With his luck, he would get a murderer.

He’s seen enough of those true-crime shows on television. There was no way. Kenma was a very cautious person and going online to take a complete stranger to his mom’s house was a very bad idea.

“—good idea. I mean, just go see. Either Craigslist or you’re gonna have to suffer another round of embarrassment in front of your family this year.” Hinata’s eyes follow the movie covers as he scrolls through them, pursing his lips at one and looking back at Kenma, his attention completely shifted into something else. “Let’s watch this one?”

Kenma gets up from the couch while the slight adrenaline is surfing on his blood, deciding that maybe Hinata was right. He needed to do something, and his options were completely limited. If he couldn’t take him or Kageyama, maybe it was best for him to get a complete stranger after all. 

Maybe.

Besides, he was nineteen — this was the perfect age to do something fucking outrageous and then have a cool story to tell when you’re older. And he knew it was going to be a bad idea, but Kenma had been backed into a corner and had nowhere to really run to.

Well, he _did,_ but there was no way he was going to risk kissing Hinata Shouyou during the holidays.

Kenma makes his way to his PC in his dark bedroom, not even halfway done but he’s got a monitor and a desktop so it was all he really needed for now. He sinks in his computer chair, ignoring just how black it was in here without his screen to give off a steady stream of harsh white light, and goes straight to Craigslist in his internet browser, his fingers trembling in slight anticipation over the mouse because there was a possibility that he might find something that would work.

Chances were slim, but never zero. 

He wouldn’t know what to do if he did.

“Hey, Kenma. Your room is really dark. Put up some fairy lights or something.” Hinata tells him, bounding into the room to stand at his shoulder and watch him search, immediately bringing the usually quiet atmosphere up as Kenma didn’t feel as desolate in this room as he usually did.

He liked the change.

He also found it funny how Hinata said that, but didn’t bother to flip the light switch on by his door.

“What do I even type?” Kenma asks, never using one of these things in his entire life and he was scared he would get lost or hacked or something completely insane. “It seems very sketchy.” He says, his eyes running through the simple font and the many blue links to choose from.

“Just type in ‘boyfriend’. Or like…’rent-a-date’, or...something.” Hinata frowns and shakes his head, not really thinking this far ahead because he really didn’t think Kenma would go through with it on a whim like this.

Kenma does exactly that, and instead of seeing faces of people who might have been just as screwed as he was, he sees pictures of houses and pools and streets with price listings on them.

These definitely did not look like boyfriends.

“Dummy, you’re under ‘housing’.” Hinata presses his finger to the screen and Kenma tries to ignore the smudge that his print left. “You gotta go under like…’services’ or something.”

Kenma sighs, really wanting less and less to do with this as time passed. His valor was quickly running out, his fuel tank running on near empty, the urge to do this spontaneous Hinata-idea diminishing as fast as it had come.

“Just forget it.” Kenma deflates and leans back against his computer chair, spine curving with the padding on his back and his arms go slack beside him, feeling the rain and thunders and Maracaibo lightnings of his worries come crashing over him again.

Hinata makes a sound like a deflating balloon as he looks at Kenma’s computer screen. “Kenma, we are getting you a Craigslist boyfriend. Come _on.”_

Kenma shuts his eyes as a sudden headache threatens to fracture his skull, hearing Hinata type out on his keyboard and click things with his mouse.

Honestly, there was no use. He might as well just stay home. And he knew he was just being a bit theatrical, because his mom might not even ask this year, but still. Nobody in their right mind would ever think to—

“Found it!”

Kenma sits up quickly out of shock at the expectation, his forehead hitting the back of Hinata’s head and sending him back into the chair again. Hinata cringes and moves out of the way, holding onto the back of his head as waves of pain trickle over his skin. 

“Why is your head so heavy? I thought there was only air in there.” Kenma says, and Hinata’s mouth parts in offense before he hits Kenma right in his forehead again and he groans at the sting, before squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing it one more time.

”Look at what I found, loser.”

His eyes flutter open, and in his blurred vision, while the little silver sparkles dance around the screen like fireflies, he swallows as intimidation bubbles up in his chest at his photo.

There’s a boy there, looking right back at him with the prettiest smile he’s ever seen, almost like Shouyou’s, crooked and just as inviting and familiar. His black hair was messy in that typical boy-next-door way, as if he had just woken up, cheeks dusted in a soft magenta as the sun poured over his skin like warm honey. He was at a beach with two people making a sandcastle by the shore behind him, round, black sunglasses shielding his eyes while the piercings in his ear glinted a delicate silver right back at him and Kenma can hardly breathe.

In that, he definitely did remind him of the summery atmosphere he’d been sat in, like how roller coasters shake before the big drop, the feeling of really _living._ And he knew this was just a bunch of pixels and he could be getting his hopes up for nothing and in fact, thinks it’s dumb that a stupid photograph could get him this flustered.

Kenma immediately felt the butterflies in his chest soar, leaving pretty colorful streaks across his ribcage as he lets his gaze fall into his lap, too shy to look back up, as if the boy was standing right in front of him.

“N-no way.” He shakes his head, the image imprinted in his head and he doesn’t think it’ll ever go away. “No way.”

Hinata’s eyes are bright in the screen’s light blaring back at them, staring at the photo in what seemed like awe to Kenma, and in the way they were caught up in an unbreakable stillness, he knew he was probably thinking the same thing.

There was no way Kenma would go through with this.

“This guy’s hot,” Hinata says, and Kenma’s cheeks splash ruby at how freely he said that. “You _gotta_ message him.”

“I c-can’t.” Kenma could barely speak _about_ him, let alone to him. He felt too nervous to even look back up at a photograph of him _smiling_. “He’s too...just...I can’t.”

Hinata breathes a little harder through his nose as he purses his lips at the photo of the guy, thinking. His eyes pass over the small numbers right underneath the ad once without reading it, then twice, clicking his tongue lightly against the roof of his mouth as he tries his best to remember them.

Kenma wouldn’t like it, but…

It had to be done. And what kind of friend would Hinata be if he didn’t cause a little trouble for him now and then?

Hinata quickly dashes to Kenma’s nightstand in hopes that his phone was charging with the numbers set at the front of his thought queue, before he finds it lying face up in the darkness the corners of his room offered for them. Moonlight slotted through Kenma’s window blinds as Hinata picked up his phone, and he unlocked it as quickly as he’d picked it up.

Kenma doesn’t realize what’s going on until Hinata is in. 

“Shouyou, _hey!”_

Hinata gets to the phone app as fast as he could with shaking fingers, adrenaline bursting through him as he hears Kenma get up from the chair, frantic as he rushes towards him.

“Don’t, _Shouyou!”_

And in the time Kenma was frightfully trying to pry his phone out of Hinata’s hands (and thinking about changing his password after tonight), Hinata gets a dial tone on speaker that completely shuts him down.

Kenma abruptly stops, and the room is silent except for the anticipation sticking to the walls and the steady tones coming from his phone. They are breathing hard from the struggle, but Kenma almost wants them to keep silent so he could catch this guy’s voice for a moment.

No, Kenma swore this was ridiculous.

_“Hello?”_

Hinata’s eyes blow wide and he shoves the phone to Kenma’s face, urging him to speak. Kenma’s heart nearly drops to his ass as he shakes his head wildly, feeling his palms begin to sweat and his mind blank out and good _god,_ this was such a bad idea.

The boy makes a sound like a hum, before he asks hello again.

His voice was soft, yet sincere, reminding him of twilight in how the stars hung low in the afternoon sky and held onto wishes, how the sun sets and settles warmth into waterfalls that bustle and lie peacefully beneath lilies. It was domestic almost, as if he had been a part of Kenma’s life already and this was just another call to check up on each other before settling in for the night.

Kenma’s lips part, and as if a part of him was trapped behind a wall of plastic wrap, he feels stuck, at a loss for words of what he should be saying. He’s got him right here, and he seemed nice enough.

All he needed to do was—

The steady, muffled beeps from his phone tell him that he’d hung up.

“Dammit, Kenma!” Hinata goes right back into the call log while Kenma breathes out towards the floor, happy to have dodged something as terrible as that while he still could with slight regret tugging lightly at his conscience.

“Shouyou, that was not cool.”

“Kenma, wait—”

“Don’t do that aga—”

The phone rings only once before the boy picks up again, his voice sounding just as calm as it did the first time. 

He was patient, it seemed. 

Kenma’s thought about it before — if he ever _was_ in a relationship, he would need for them to be patient with him. He would need them to be okay with long silences and nerves that swallowed his confidence whole, sometimes made it too hard to even really _move_ , and he needed them to be patient with him even when he wasn’t with himself.

And he wondered if it was a lot to ask, to have someone wait for him while he tried his very best to catch up to them, no matter how many times he’d trip and fall behind. 

He was scared of that. So for this boy to sound like he had all the time in the world for whoever was on the opposite end, whether it be a scam or some kids playing a dumb prank on him, makes him truly reconsider this whole date thing.

This was weird. 

Kenma couldn’t handle it.

 _“Hello~?”_ And a short moment passes by before he speaks up again. _“Hey, whoever this is, did you know that the fear of the unknown is a real thing, and situations like this cause a slight spike in cortisol, despite it being overlooked? Stress is the number one killer in humans, and you are about to kill me. Do you wanna get sued?”_

Hinata slaps a hand over his mouth and screws his eyes shut, trying his best not to laugh out loud at him, afraid to ruin Kenma’s chances even more. They were _so_ close, too. He couldn’t laugh.

Don’t laugh, _don’t laugh._

Kenma, on the other hand, finds an empty threat like that kind of endearing. 

“H-hello?” 

_“...Hi.”_

Kenma swallows and looks at Hinata, his skin feeling nearly too hot for him to settle comfortably within it as his eyes flick back at the phone.

“Sorry, I...Are you the boy from the, um...the Craigslist ad?” Kenma shakes his head at how bizarre that sounded coming out of his mouth.

The demeanor suddenly changes, and Kenma still feels too nervous to really hold a conversation, his thoughts spinning around his head like a film reel, way too fast and he’s terrified he’ll forget what he’s going to say and make a bigger fool of himself than he already has in front of his soon-to-be-pretend-boyfriend.

And thinking about that word felt almost as bad as going to his parents’ house for the holidays.

 _“Yes, hello! It’s about time someone saw it. I was really about to take it down because nobody called me.”_ Kenma could almost see him pout from the other side of the phone.

There was a noise in the background, muffled and far away but someone was screaming and Kenma could not tell if it was out of anguish or just because. Hinata did the latter sometimes, so it didn’t phase him that much.

The boy yells away from the phone for a _Bokuto_ to _please shut up, I am on the phone with a client!_

And it’s here when Kenma thinks this truly is ridiculous.

_“You’ve read the ad, right?”_

Kenma looks at Hinata, who shakes his head with a shrug. He also couldn’t say _not all of it, we just saw your picture and called you,_ because that would be weird.

So he just says the first half, opting to keep the rest to himself.

_“Ah, well, basically, I’ll just pretend to be your date to an event. And you pay me with dinner. Many people have given me good reviews for my services, so I think it’s worth the price.”_

Kenma blinks into the phone. 

“Yeah? Like who?”

The other end is quiet and Kenma almost thinks he’s struck a nerve, even though it would be nearly impossible because it sounds like nothing could break this guy.

He finally speaks up again.

_“I pretended to propose to some girl in my history class last year for free dessert, if that counts. We got the engagement cake.”_

Kenma smiles and looks at his feet, balancing on one leg to press down on a stray thread from his other sock, before pulling that leg up and feeling the sock tighten around his foot as the thread pops out. He felt a little better, now that he wasn’t completely focused on talking to some random stranger from Craigslist. 

“That counts.” He nods, a soft smile on his face.

His butterflies dance when he chuckles on the other end.

_“Well, other half. I’m Kuroo. And you’re…”_

_Other half._

Kenma blinks, too lost in thought and trying to hang on to the feeling that his voice gave him, so vivid and lively like neon yellow, before Hinata nudges him with his elbow and gestures to the phone again, bringing him back down to earth with the pain.

“Oh, uh...Kenma. Kozume Kenma, but...Kenma is okay.”

_“Okay, Kenma. What’s our plan?”_

Oh. 

Kenma didn’t think they’d get this far, really. He didn’t think much about anything regarding the situation he was in right now.

“Um...well, I have to go to my parents’ for the holidays. And they...always ask me about a boyfriend. I want them to stop, it’s embarrassing.”

Embarrassing.

Just like enlisting the help of a Rent a Boyfriend over fucking _Craigslist_ on a Friday night, but he didn’t think it was good to dwell on that much, either.

_“Okay, got it. So we go, pretend to date over the holiday. Sounds good to me. How long?”_

Kenma blushes again at how easily Kuroo had agreed to do it, expecting some sort of protest or silent judgement from him but he never did and it felt good to not feel the constant worry nipping at the back of his neck right now. He hangs on to the edge of his shirt and focuses as best as he could onto what little light had drained onto his hardwood floor from the computer screen, finding his thoughts in the cracks between the slots.

“It’s usually like...three weeks. Is that okay?”

_“Yeah, it’s cool.”_

It’s cool, it’s _cool?_ He had no issues with spending three weeks with someone he didn’t even know, meanwhile Kenma panicked when literally anyone he didn’t know called his name and he actively avoided department stores with employees walking around because he didn’t want them to ask if he needed help.

Things like that triggered his flight or fight response, yet, Kuroo was _cool_ with being with a stranger for a few weeks.

He would never get it.

“O-okay. Um...we have a couple of months before the dinner. I’ll...save your number and text you a week in advance, to not bother you?”

Kuroo takes a little bit, but he responds in that same, afternoon tide voice Kenma liked so much. 

_“You wouldn’t bother me, Kenma. It will give me something to do, so it’s completely fine. You have my number, so just let me know anytime. Okay?”_

Kenma smiles at his feet. “...Okay.”

_“Okay, bye!”_

And Hinata hangs up just as Kenma was saying goodbye and he beams at him, his eyes nearly too brilliant against the computer screen. There was a sudden lift, as if they’d been holding their breath with their heads underwater for too long and finally broke the water’s surface, and Kenma is able to rest easy for now, the date seemingly farther away than he’d thought.

“Kozume Kenma, the man you are today. Let’s go celebrate!” Hinata guides Kenma out of the room and back into his tiny kitchen as he radiates with the aftermath of doing something so outlandish in his bedroom.

If you were to ask him if he’d ever consider hiring a boyfriend off of the internet from Hinata’s suggestion, he would definitely tell you no and keep moving.

And he doesn’t think he’ll ever get over just how weird this truly was.


	3. the diner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!!
> 
> very sorry for the late chapter - i was gonna publish it soon but ended up spending more time than i thought i would writing a bokuaka oneshot hhh
> 
> it's posted if you wanna read it!! i tried to make it angsty, around like 10k?? bokuto is a ghost and akaashi is trying to move on and there are lots of weird metaphors but whats new - if u do get around to it i hope u enjoy it ^-^
> 
> and if you're here, i hope you like this and that it's not too boring!! happy halloween (if u celebrate!) <333
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> UPDATE AS OF 11.02: i fixed the setting of the au!! i'm sorry for the americanization - i'm american myself and although i make up city names and things like that, there is always a lean into the us because i live here. they are in japan - kenma and kuroo live close to a place similar to hachioji, tokyo, where the nightlife is still relatively far. the americanization was not explicitly intended, i didn't really think about that until i looked into it! in this au and future aus i'll keep that in mind. thank you!!

November brought the very kind of cliche Hallmark movie setting that he could ever want within their small town.

Red and orange leaves littered front lawns and strolled down the street as soft breezes danced alongside them, igniting embers in Kenma that only really burned when he was home by himself or with Hinata. This kind of cozy happiness made him really look forward to walking home by himself, while autumn nipped at his heels and the rest of his youth felt like it was exploding underneath his skin.

His campus put up dainty fairy lights around the branches of the oak trees that stood tall and stayed lit during the nighttime, bucolic in the way they reminded him of hot chocolate and peppermint, twinkling as if galaxies replaced the filament and Kenma would get lost in their starry radiance had he gone to look at them up close.

He moved away from Nerima City after high school, and now lived in an area where the nightlife was more than half an hour away, and he never really bothered to do anything unless it was the weekend and Hinata _really_ wanted to go out with him. Like Moon Neso, isolated, with the company of something new and worth exploring at his fingertips.

Kenma didn’t mind it, how being here felt like he’d gone to a different world, where there were no flickering neon signs and disco balls that reminded him of smudged eye makeup and fishnets.

He was more of a homebody, anyway.

The sun set a little earlier now, and Kenma always made sure to watch it kiss the moon goodbye through his window when he got home before it. Rich fuschias streaked the dusty topaz lining the horizon like thick acrylic paint today, while frothy violet clouds swept over his neighborhood, reminding him of how the soapy tide separates on shorelines. Simple things like this cause Kenma to really feel at home in his apartment, as if the sun had been setting in his chest rather, pooling warmth in his bones and security into his blood.

He sits by his window, resting his chin on his hand on the windowsill, watching the sun filter a dark orange, the stars transparent and speckling the sky like a field of poppies. He sometimes thought the world was nearly too pretty for its own good, and how sunsets like this were beautiful, but a telltale sign of pollution and its impudent death in the future.

Very superficial.

But they were nice, at least. 

The notification sound from his phone goes off and makes his heart beat a bit quicker at the sudden noise, but he puts it off and takes the time to think about everything. So far, he’s got a solution to his problem, but he was mostly fretting over the fact that he’d have to stay with his family for three weeks with a stranger by his side, lying through his teeth and trying to keep up the facade that they were dating.

He was always bad at acting, never being able to lie well. 

Maybe this wasn’t the right answer.

On top of that, the impending anxiety that would come from trying to get to know Kuroo over the next couple of weeks didn’t sit right with him, always being too shy in front of strangers to begin with. It was hard for Hinata when they first met in middle school, but he had been persistent.

He still didn't know how good of an idea this was.

He pulls himself away from the glass when twilight hummed back at him, the horizon fuzzy with grey smokey clouds and smearing navy over the pretty colors the sunset had left for him, making his way towards his phone.

There were messages from a number he didn’t recognize.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he taps the notification and unlocks his phone with his fingerprint as his heart picks up at the intrusion.

 **9375938583:** _hey other half!_

 **9375938583:** _i know u said we still had time and u were gonna text me a week before butttt_

 **9375938583:** _i was thinking,,,, we dont know anything about each other AND our plan is kind of faulty_

 **9375938583:** _lots of holes in it_

 **9375938583:** _how do i know your family isnt a bunch of cannibals?? how do i know ur not leading me into a trap where u kill me and sell my skin on the dark web????_

(Kenma reads over the texts once, then twice, feeling that dumb giddiness that stupid teenagers get when they’re dating some other _stupid_ teenager, half expecting Kuroo to show up at his window tonight and throw rocks at it for him to open it, just like the movies, before they escape to Mars while the world whispered of freedom and the wind coasted their spaceship. 

He can’t believe this, how shy he was and he hadn’t even formally met him yet. His fingers shake over the keyboard as the clicks fill the silence in his room.)

**_i think i should be asking you the same thing kuroo_ **

**_a craigslist ad for a rent a boyfriend is pretty sus_ **

(And in no time, Kuroo texts back, Kenma staring at the little grey typing bubbles in the corner and he thinks he might throw up at the anticipation for him to text back.)

 **9375938583:** _:0 i am NOT sus_

**_what if i’m not either?_ **

**kuroo (craiglist boyfriend):** _hm_

 **kuroo (craigslist):** _seems like there is only ONE way to settle this_

 **kuroo (craigslist):** _go on a date with me tonight_

(Okay, _now_ Kenma can’t breathe. 

They still had a couple more weeks until the end of November, and that’s when Kenma was supposed to do all that scary talking-to-a-stranger business, when they were supposed to start thinking about fake dates, pretend PDA, and all that. He didn’t want it to start _early._

But even so...if not now, when? He should be getting to know Kuroo at least a little bit before then, so it at least seemed realistic enough. 

Maybe he was onto something after all.

And then he thinks about kissing Kuroo in front of his mom and feels the heat radiate from his cheeks tenfold.)

 **kuroo (craigslist):** _how come ur not texting backkk_

 **kuroo (craigslist):** _did i scare u :((_

**_no no_ **

**_ur right_ **

**_i just didnt think youd wanna go on like a date for it_ **

**_like tonight_ **

**kuroo (craigslist):** _oh we dont have to go on a date!_

 **kuroo (craigslist):** _texting is okay with me too_

 **kuroo (craigslist):** _i just thought it would be easier to get to know each other but we also dont have to do all that_

(Kenma purses his lips into a tight line and he wants to tell him texting was better so he didn't have to go through the stress of meeting him, but there was something in the way his mom popped into his head at the wrong time that pushed him to go through with it. Even if Kuroo wasn’t really his boyfriend, going on a pretend date with him would at least make it seem like he was for the time being, and then he could shove it in his mom’s face later. He could say _yeah, on our first date…_ and then make up a story so it was at least a half-truth.

Or, it would make him _feel_ like it was, at least.)

**_no no_ **

**_it’s oka_ **

**_okay*_ **

**_a date is okay_ **

**kuroo:** _kenma have u ever been on a date before_

**_ofc i have!_ **

**kuroo:** _,,, right_

**_am i that transparent_ **

**kuroo:** _a little_

 **kuroo:** _but it’s kinda cute_

 **kuroo:** _i’m taking ur date virginity_

**_KUROO please dont make this weird_ **

**kuroo:** _IT’S TRUE_

 **kuroo:** _i assume u live in my area sooo lets go somewhere_

**_okok_ **

**_ummm_ **

**_what about_ **

**_that ramen place_**

**_near um_ **

**_fujino?_ **

**kuroo:** _:0 I LOVE THAT PLACE_

 **kuroo:** _okay lets go!_

 **kuroo:** _hmmm what time_

**_whenever is best for u kuroo_ **

**kuroo:** _lets be cliche and meet at 9pm sharp_

 **kuroo:** _sounds good?_

**_sounds good._ **

**kuroo:** _alright other half! see u then xx_

(And the absolute first thing Kenma does, with his shaking fingers and airy head coalescing with the stars above him, is call Hinata.)

~❀~

The fear of the unknown was a very real thing, and Kozume Kenma was walking right into its unbridled hands. 

It was like looking into the offing on a beach at night, staring into the ivory moonlight as it casts a blinding silver sheen into both everywhere and nowhere at the same time, as the empty waves called out to you and swept over the shoreline. You had no idea where the moon stretched its light to, no idea where the water ended or where it began. 

Fear was an intruder, the piercing creak of floorboards past midnight, yet you knew exactly who it was standing behind you, watching, waiting.

There was a lingering fear there, something you know you shouldn’t have, but it was persistent and clung to you like a shadow. 

It hung onto Kenma’s shoulders when he got into his car with Hinata, ran its fingers through his hair as he parked and listened to his advice on what to do should things go wrong, kissed the tips of his ears when he got out and made his way to the door. Hinata had suggested they park somewhere far away so Kuroo wouldn’t think it was weird, telling Kenma to remember their safe word as he rolled the window up. 

_“Do you remember our secret word?” Hinata asks, sitting behind Kenma on his bed and trying his very best to braid his bleached hair like how he used to do for his little sister before she learned to do it herself, bored and always finding entertainment in changing up Kenma’s hairstyle every once in a while._

_“Hm…” Kenma looks up at the ceiling from his PSP loading screen, eyes skipping against the stucco and finding his thoughts in the white paint. “It’s cattail.”_

_“And it means?” Hinata beams and tilts his head, stopping his movements through Kenma’s hair, radiating excitement for him to say their super-secret-special word._

_Kenma shakes his head, feeling silly, the braid loose but still tugging at his head when he does. “Shouyou.”_

_“Come on, Kenma!”_

_With a final sigh and a playful roll of his eyes, not really understanding why Hinata was so bent on making sure he knew their word, but he knew it had something to do with wanting to be like those cliche pairs on television, he decided he’d let it slide, just this once._

_“It means that one of us is in trouble. And we need help, right now.”_

And there he was, Kenma’s own unknown, sitting at an empty table on his phone, in all his greys and blacks and navy blues and every other color that was shrouded in mystery and made people uneasy.

Kuroo was probably nowhere near as nervous as he had been, his black hair even messier in person and his eyes just as pretty as the dim lights from the ceiling frame him in a soft corona that he thought looked lovely on him. Kenma takes a deep breath as he blinks at the door, lowering his gaze to the asphalt beneath his shoes in hopes that it would steer him in the right direction.

It was just a dude. 

If this was a real scheduled date, he’d have to do it anyway. He might as well start now when it didn’t count. 

He goes in while his nerves weren’t at a peak yet, barely feeling the handle to the diner and the floor beneath his feet, smiling shyly at a waitress that passed him, and then he remembers that Hinata had insisted for him to put clips in his hair to match his clothes and maybe she was actually laughing at him instead.

His cheeks are stained coral by the time he gets to Kuroo, stuck on the thought, and he swallows, preparing to say hello and take Kuroo's attention from his phone for a moment, but the words caught up to his throat too slowly and Kuroo’s eyes widen when he looks up at him first.

He immediately looks at his shoes, avoiding his eyes and letting the hair that wasn’t clipped back fall into his face to shield himself from Kuroo. It was now when he felt self-conscious in his appearance for the first time, hoping Kuroo didn’t notice the small birthmark he had beside his ear or see just how tired he really was from staying up most nights. 

And he knew he probably saw all of the flaws he tried hard to ignore himself and it makes him feel itchy again.

“A-are you Kenma?” 

Kenma thinks of cattails and nods quickly, giving a small, forced grin that he'd practiced in the mirror before coming, hoping to whatever was above the stars that it looked genuine enough. He was struggling. 

“Yeah. Hey, Kuroo.” Kenma slips into the seat in front of him, kind of hard under his butt but he quickly gets used to it and tries not to embarrass himself in front of Kuroo. 

He looks at him, dressed in a silky, red button-down shirt and black jeans.

He tries not to notice how the first four buttons were undone, or the thin chain that sat against his chest or the piercings in his ears. He _also_ tries not to notice how nice the silver rings looked on his fingers, or the watch adorning his wrist, or the black tattoo on his ribcage that peeked out from the valley of his shirt every so often when he moved, or how silver and red and black were quickly going to become colors that occupied his headspace for the next week and half, maybe more.

He does not succeed in not noticing.

“So, you _are_ just as pretty as I expected. I like your clips.” 

What the fuck, what the _fuck._

He just got here and feels like he’s going to explode. He could feel his cheeks about to set fire to the entire restaurant as Kuroo stares at him, that same, crooked smile plastered on his face. He feels the toes of Kuroo's shoes against his own and he avoids his eyes again, contemplating counting the amount of salt grains sitting in the shaker beside the dessert menu at the end of the table.

No, that was weird.

“Th-thank you. My, uh...my best friend insisted.” A delicate pink makes its way to his cheeks again.

There are a million things on the tip of Kenma’s tongue, questions and topics that Hinata had practiced with him ready to be spread over the table and taken apart. And Kenma feels like Kuroo was taking him apart, inspecting little pieces of him and taking mental notes to keep in his back pocket to remember later. 

He cannot handle this. 

The waitress that smiled at him earlier had come over to their table, and despite being full of nerves, Kenma asked for a small soup because it wasn’t expensive and this place always had good tomato noodle soup, especially at night. Plus, it would give him something to do in case he ran out of stamina. 

“Tell me more about this plan,” Kuroo says, confident and unfazed and completely normal, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on top of them, leaning into Kenma a little more as if he’d miss his voice had he been farther away. 

Kenma takes a breath but it feels too difficult as his butterflies flutter and leave their colors all over his stomach. 

“As you know...every year, my mom has dinner with our family. Cousins and siblings and stuff. I usually spend three weeks there, so...we would need to be there for three weeks...together.” Kenma feels terribly awkward as his brain feels like it's buffering, eyes wanting to take in every piece of Kuroo that he could without making it obvious.

“Right.” Kuroo pouts and nods, clearly thinking it was a good idea, and Kenma could have sworn he looked excited as a soft blush kisses the tip of his nose, the restaurant getting somehow quieter as Kuroo speaks up again. “Three weeks. Will I have three weeks of payment?”

And Kenma almost panics in his seat because he thought he had told Kuroo he’d pay him with money and despite Kenma having enough to live on his own, he did not think he had enough to _pay_ him for three weeks. 

But then he remembered Kuroo was nice enough to require food and not money.

He needs to calm _down_.

“Yes, you will.” Kemma looks at the reflection of the lamp above them on the surface of the table, worried about his stupid hair clips and he wants to rip them out and throw them out of the window. “Every day for that holiday, she cooks. Sometimes I do, or my siblings. It’s always good, I think. You’ll like it.”

And as the date goes on, Kenma begins to find it strange how he was able to warm up _this_ much, sitting in front of a stranger who was about to be his fake boyfriend in a couple of weeks, as he told him stories about his roommate and how he used to play volleyball at his old high school. It almost felt surreal, as if he really _was_ his partner, and the family dinner was just another cheesy couples thing that they did together every year. He was still incredibly uneasy about this guy, but with the way he was laughing at past memories of a Bokuto, so effortlessly pulling Kenma in like they were the opposite ends of magnets, made for being together, he thinks he was more than okay.

He thinks, if he were to look from the outside in at them, they would look like a real couple.

He blushes and quickly thinks of ice.

“You know, Kuroo...I think you give yourself too much credit.” Kenma tells him, once he felt a bit more comfortable, still on edge and his hands would still be shaking if he were to hold them out in front of him, but he kept them under his thighs as he looked at his half-empty bowl of soup. 

_“Really?”_ Kuroo asks, but it’s more of a question that’s supposed to make you nervous because it wasn’t _actually_ a question, and in the way he’s got his eyebrow quirked and he was looking at Kenma as if he was about to take on a challenge, it makes Kenma regret saying anything. “This place has free engagement ice cream, don’t they?”

His heart shoots into his throat as Kuroo slips one of the silver bands off around his finger, about to slide off the booth.

“Whoa, don’t, _Kuroo—”_

And Kenma is thankful that he stops, dodging yet another bullet with the spontaneity that was Kuroo Tetsurou. He was like a firework that didn’t go off yet, even though you lit it and saw smoke coming from the fuse. 

Kenma wasn’t sure if he liked the threat.

“What, no proposal?” And when Kenma looks away with the shake of his head, Kuroo simpers. “Next time, then.”

 _Next time_. He was nuts.

And after many sly smiles that reminded Kenma of dusk, and after many, _many_ bouts of Kenma getting so embarrassed in front of Kuroo that he thinks it’s nearly impossible for this much blood to be in his face at a time, he learned a lot about him in what felt like little time.

Kuroo was majoring in business, but tutored kids for chemistry and biology after his last class on Wednesdays, and was a TA for the physics students on Fridays. He liked mackerel and banana milk and painting sometimes, even though he was bad at it. He didn’t like the way gasoline smells at all and was terrified of throwing up ever again after a stomach bug he got in sophomore year of high school.

Kenma's also learned that he liked to listen to the silver bells in Kuroo’s laugh more than he did anything else, and liked the way his voice glossed over the curls of his words as if he truly had been made of magic.

He would have believed it.

While Kenma listened to him, let him do most of the talking as he pictured every story in his head, he thinks Kuroo is more than interesting, that he was full of voids and deserted islands and lively cities that he wanted to spend more time exploring with time, if he'd let him.

They would have been very good friends had they met sooner. 

It wasn’t until they were leaving the restaurant together, that Kenma thought of something. There was a possibility of them not looking so real by the time they got to his parents’ house, despite the efforts to get to know each other. Kenma thinks they were doing well on the talking part, but then, there was the _other_ part…

The idea makes him uneasy.

Even _worse_ , when Kuroo catches on, reads right through his transparency and asks what he’s thinking about.

“Do you think...we should practice anything before we get there?” Kenma asks, the moon high and full and casting chalky ivory onto the dark street beneath their feet. 

Kuroo blinks, tilting his head at Kenma. “Practice what?”

Kenma felt the lasting ache of his cheeks as they bloomed once more under his skin and gave way to exactly what he was asking about before he got a chance to tell Kuroo to forget it. He makes an _ah_ sound once Kenma looks at his shoes, and nods in understanding.

“You wanna practice being all coupley and stuff.”

“Kuroo, _shush!”_ Kenma ducks and lowers his voice as if there were anyone else around him listening, as if it hadn’t felt like they’d been the only two people around, and Kuroo smiles.

“If you wanna kiss me so bad, all you gotta do is say so.” 

Kenma shakes his head as humiliation sits on his chest, pressing his hands to his cheeks and feeling a weird irritation lacing through his veins, yet, still interested to see what Kuroo would say next, hoping to hear his voice change again like it did before. He was being teased.

It was weird.

“Kuroo!” Kenma glances towards his car, spotting Hinata in the passenger seat moving his head along to a song playing in his car. “I take it back. F-forget it, I'll see you soon.”

Kuroo grins at how easy it was to mess with Kenma, before reaching out to his jacket as soon as he pulled away. Kenma turns back around, and there is a hand on his waist that made heat spread into his bones by the time he realizes what’s happening.

He feels of red stoplights once Kuroo lightly presses his lips against the middle of his forehead.

He pulls back slightly, Kenma stuck and not really knowing what to do, before feeling Kuroo smile against his skin, making his heart soar above the stratosphere.

“See you soon, other half.”

And as Kenma gets into his car, fingers shaking over the wheel and trying to come down from the high that was Kuroo, he realizes that keeping up with someone else might be harder than he thought.


	4. the party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! here is a new chapter!
> 
> also i hope this doesn't come off as weird or anything like that!!! i just had to say,,,, you guys are so nice wtf T-T the messages that you send are so encouraging to keep going with this au and improve my writing!! i very much appreciate all the nice things you've said about it. it makes me so happy that you like this so far, and i hope the rest doesn't disappoint you!! thank you so much for sticking around and taking the time to read this fic ahhhhh your kindness makes me so <3333333 and i know it's just a fic but still. you didn't have to take the time to read it or leave kudos or talk to me in the comments or anything but you did. so thank you!!! (◠﹏◠✿)
> 
> i have a lot of things planned for this au so i hope to see you around!
> 
> also also! i usually write texts within my aus to kind of take a break between reading because i know it can be a lot. i hope that's okay! if not, please tell me if it's too distracting and i'll minimize the texting portions!
> 
> TW // drugs , alcohol
> 
> there are mentions of underage drinking and smoking in this chapter. please do not read if you are uncomfortable with that!! this chapter isn't meant to be a filler, but it isn't that essential to the plot itself. there is just some characterization in here! i don't mean to make you uncomfortable when you read my stuff so if you'd rather not, please skip this one!
> 
> END OF TW
> 
> thank you!! enjoy!

**shouyou:** _KENMAAAAAAA_

 **shouyou:** _i hope u had a great day today!!! pls remember to drink enough water and eat some protein!_

 **shouyou:** _and dont forget noya’s party tonight pls dont flake on me or else i’ll cry_

 **shouyou:** _AND TEXT YOUR BOYFRIEND I LOVE U ★~(◠﹏◕✿)_

**_HES NOT MY BOYFRIEND_ **

**_SHUT UP SHOUYOU_ **

**_and i love u too_ **

**_i guess_ **

**_whatever >:|_**

**shouyou:** _mmmhmmm_

 **shouyou:** _i dunno,,,,, my friends dont kiss ME on the forehead after a DATE_

**_:0 DUDE YOU SAW THAT_ **

**_IM CYRING IM SO EMBARRASSED PLS SHUT UP SHOUYOU_ **

**_omg_ **

**_im blocking you_ **

**_how do i unsend someone else’s text_ **

**_u are gonna give me a heart attack_ **

**shouyou:** _HEYYYY INVITE HIM TO THE PARTY_

**_pls god no_ **

**_i would die_ **

**_what if i get shit faced and embarrass myself in front of him ;-;_ **

**shouyou:** _well if he cant handle you at your worst he doesnt deserve u at ur best :/_

**_shouyou._ **

**shouyou:** _kenma! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧_

**_i am not inviting him to the party_ **

**shouyou:** _pleaseee i wanna meet him too T-T_

 **shouyou:** _tobio agrees with me!_

**_it’s 5pm_ **

**_i know kageyamas at work_ **

**shouyou:** _,,,,, if he was here with me he would agree :(_

**_i am definitely not inviting him_ **

**shouyou:** _KENMA PLEASEEEE_

 **shouyou:** _if u dont i will literally cry_

**_,,,,,_ **

**_dont care!_ **

**shouyou:** _so what i’m hearing is that youre homophobic_

**_SHOUYOU_ **

**shouyou:** _COME ON KENMA PLEASEEEE_

**_fuck FINE_ **

**_what do i even say???_ **

**_“hey my best friend wants to meet you and we’re going to a party later tonight do you wanna come??”_ **

**shouyou:** _yes._

 **shouyou:** _literally that is it_

 **shouyou:** _it’s not weird unless you make it weird_

**_this is weird_ **

**_he is my pretend boyfriend that i met from a craigslist ad to take with me to my parents’ house for three weeks over the holidays_ **

**_why are we pretending that this is not weird_ **

**shouyou:** _whew_ _u are making my head hurt kenma o(╥﹏╥)o_

 **shouyou:** _just text him goodbye c u soon <33_

~❀~

(Kenma has been staring at his phone for about ten minutes now, watching the cursor blink steadily back at him, intimidating and impatient. 

He did have the worry that maybe Kuroo saw him typing on the other end, _maybe_ wanting to text him today or something, and was waiting for him on the opposite end. And he knew it probably wasn’t likely, that Kuroo was probably busy studying or tutoring on the weekend because he was _just that nice_ , so maybe he wasn’t waiting for him. Maybe he was worried for nothing. 

Kenma wasn’t really scared of anything but fucking hell if this wasn’t one of them.)

**_hey kuroo_ **

(Kenma quickly deletes it because it sounds stupid. 

Maybe he should be more like Kuroo when it comes to this, to make it more believable. Kenma was not a fan of couple-y things to begin with, but he thinks today might be good for him if he wanted Kuroo to come to the party. He swallows.)

**_hey other half!_ **

(Kenma deletes it again. It just sounded too much unlike him. Kuroo might get scared.)

**_kuroo_ **

(Okay, that’s good.)

**_would you like to come to a party with me tonight_ **

**_well, me and my best friend_ **

**_his name is hinata shouyou_**

**_and the hosts are his friends nishinoya and azumane_ **

**kuroo:** _other half! i was hoping you’d text me today_

(And Kenma blushes for the first time today, sitting on his rough-material couch and waiting for Hinata to come over so they could go together. He thinks it’s cute that Kuroo texted back so soon.

Maybe he _had_ been waiting.

He tries to stop his shaky fingers.)

 **kuroo:** _yes i will go with you_

**_wait really_ **

**_what if it was a trap for me to sell your skin on the dark web???_ **

**_u are too trusting_ **

**kuroo:** _well would we get to hang out first at the party?_

**_hmm yes_ **

**kuroo:** _then it would be worth it_

 **kuroo:** _send the address and i’ll be there_

 **kuroo:** _can i bring my roommate and his boyfriend!!!_

 **kuroo:** _WAIT HOW SHOULD I DRESS_

**_it’s just a college party kuro_ **

**_kuroo**_ **

**_and yes pls bring some friends_ **

**_i dont want u to be uncomfortable since we dont really know each other_ **

**kuroo:** _wait i like kuro_

 **kuroo:** _it’s kind of like a nickname_

 **kuroo:** _plus it’ll be more convincing to your parents if you call me that in front of them_

**_ah jeez ;-; im still kinda nervous for it_ **

**_we only have like one and a half weeks and then we have to go_ **

**_spend three weeks together_ **

**_we barely know each other this is WEIRD_ **

**_maybeeee this is a bad idea_ **

**_i think_ **

**_maybe i should back out_ **

**kuroo:** _:0 are you breaking up with me??? over text???_

 **kuroo:** _how am i gonna go on without you_

**_kuro._ **

**kuroo:** _the love of my life,,,, leaving my side so suddenly_

 **kuroo:** _my universe_

 **kuroo:** _my world_

 **kuroo:** _i am shattered_

 **kuroo:** _i feel my heart breaking right inside my chest_

 **kuroo:** _all i feel is pain_

**_KURO_ **

**kuroo:** _wait in all seriousness is this really something that you dont wanna do_

 **kuroo:** _like i was really looking forward to hanging out with u over the holidays but that’s okay too_

**_no it’s not u!!_ **

**_i’m just like_ **

**_scared_ **

**kuroo:** _we will be fine other half_

 **kuroo:** _lets utilize the time we have left to get to know each other_

 **kuroo:** _i could put off tutoring to come see you every day!_

 **kuroo:** _or anything really just let me know what you want to do_

**_i appreciate u_ **

**_i'm sorry for being so indecisive_ **

**_i’m just scared_ **

**_what if they see through us!_ **

**kuroo:** _fuck to be honest i am too like ive never really done this before lol_

 **kuroo:** _but! as long as we work together we will be fine_

 **kuroo:** _the main goal is to just convince your mom that we are dating_

 **kuroo:** _like i said i have excellent reviews_

 **kuroo:** _ten out of ten stars if i had to rate myself_

 **kuroo:** _do not stress kenma ur cortisol levels will spike and kill you before we even get to the dinner_

 **kuroo:** _i’ll bring you some green tea when i get to the party_

 **kuroo:** _i have to go my roommate is screaming down the hallway_

**_wait is he okay_ **

**kuroo:** _i hope so!_

 **kuroo:** _and send me the address dont forget_

 **kuroo:** _see u tonight other half xx_

~❀~

Kenma is _drunk._

He knew things would get blurred as soon as he set foot into the house Nishinoya shared with Azumane, immediately bathed in a pretty cerulean LED light that dressed him in sapphires and decorated dancing bodies with a stark azure. There were about four different substances to inhale and blow out the rest of his conscience within the backyard, the atmosphere smoky and hazy within the corners of the living room, spilled alcohol soaking into the soil. His cup was filled for what seemed like the millionth time with a mixture from the big red jug sitting in the kitchen, his stomach feeling empty the more he filled it with finger food that lost its flavor after the third cup of punch coated his tongue instead.

Two bodies were pressed against him on where they sat, a plush, white loveseat that Kenma thought was too nice to be in the middle of all these drunk college students, his cup feeling too heavy as he balanced it on his thigh. His eyes trickle past Bokuto, and a boy with the sharpest eyes that he’s ever seen listening to him speak excitedly, commanding attention in just the way he shaped his lips over his words.

A sharp odor of tobacco fills his nose as someone walks past and breaks his line of sight, their hoodie too long as if followed them like drapes.

Kenma blinks, the time in here feeling like the orbit of the sun, revolving and slow and endless, music pounding against his muddled mind and ladybugs settle on his cheeks. He takes another sip of the punch in his cup, his chest igniting with the strong liquor in it while his throat contorts around the cheap food dyes, trying to keep the buzzing in his veins to a maximum while he was still here.

“Where the...hell is Noya?” Hinata grumbles loudly, resting sloppily on Kageyama beneath him, wanting to see him at least once before midnight strikes and silently ushers them to leave before the hosts do.

“He’s, um...kitchen. Or maybe upstairs...don’t know.” Kageyama rests his chin on Hinata’s shoulder and shuts his eyes peacefully, the EDM not too loud but amplifying the air in his head as the sidechain kicks him into space.

Hinata had decided that Kageyama would be the one to drive them here, and despite protest from the younger, he agreed anyway after Hinata promised him pork curry (knowing how bad of a cook he was, but he guessed the effort was enough). Kenma felt like he was dragging too much to really keep up, so he didn’t bother talking or moving or doing anything, really. He hated the taste of alcohol, but it felt good to float, the tip of his nose brushing the stars while confidence replaced his insecurities.

Even if it was temporary.

“Hey, Kenma...where’s your boyfriend?” Hinata asks, and despite the alcohol stepping on his nerves with heavy boots, he still feels the light fuse of another blush threatening to sweep across his cheeks at the mention, and image of spring rain and hair like raven's wings to match.

“He is not my boyfriend.” 

And Kenma feels weird when those words left his lips because Kuroo had quite literally introduced himself as his boyfriend when the four of them ran into Azumane and his friends Sawamura and Sugawara when they first got there, and Kenma had been too humiliated to say anything to correct him, thanking whatever was up above that the light neutralized his face. They didn’t seem to mind and treated them like it was normal for Kenma to be dating someone.

Kenma, however, minded it the most.

He looks into the crowd for any sign of him, letting his hair fall into his face as he peers into the kitchen for him as if to hide. 

He finds him, oddly enough, people passing by and breaking up the picture he was trying to paint of him, and when he glances over in his direction, Kenma feels the slightest bit of courage to go and talk to him, to go see what he was up to. They’d been together since he met him here with his own friends, but Hinata convinced him to play a game of beer pong and he lost him among the crowd.

He kind of missed him.

Maybe.

Hm.

Kenma looks into his cup, feeling the bass of the music rattle his bones and shake up the alcohol in his stomach, deciding to stay on the couch.

But speak of the devil, and he will appear.

“He’s coming over here,” Kageyama tells him, soft blue eyes following the boy in question as dark eyebrows raise. “Maybe we should go, Shouyou.”

Hinata’s lips are set into a small grin as Kuroo gets closer, and despite Kenma wanting them to stay and act as an emollient for him, just in case he needed out, he could feel the fire burning in his chest at the thought of talking to him again, wanting the addictive tablet of his voice or the nicotine drag of his presence more than he was okay with.

“Okay. We will be back.” Hinata slides off of Kageyama’s lap with his eyes set on the snack bar, and Kenma couldn’t catch what he said over the music, but he sees Kageyama smile and nod, letting Hinata excitedly grab his hand and lead him to wherever he had set in mind.

It was here, as Kuroo replaced the warmth Hinata and Kageyama brought, that he thought this was a bad idea.

Not his worst, but it was pretty up there.

Kenma immediately feels like he’s been dropped in the Arctic Sea, alone and cold, scared to even move because he didn’t want to drown in him, yet. Kuroo's waters were stark and icy and intimidating, and Kenma was perfectly comfortable wading near the shore, letting the sun keep his as warm as it could while frigid breezes sweep through his hair.

He already thought about him more times than he should have last night, this morning, this afternoon, and then again on the way here. Kuroo was quickly worming his way into his head and making a home in his psyche the more they spoke, the more he cared for him, and despite not even knowing his birthday, Kenma was drawn.

Kuroo lightly tugs at the end of Kenma’s hair to pull him out of his thoughts, the sleeves of his oversized grey shirt tripping down the black long sleeves underneath it. He was messy, Kenma seeing he was definitely more than tipsy and going down the road to shit faced if he had anymore.

“Hey, other half, _baby_. You doing okay? You seem kinda spaced out.” Kuroo’s lips are stained a dark turquoise from the lights and Kenma had to look away from them, his voice sultry like honey. “Are you okay?”

His heart is in his throat and he feels like he’s crashing back down to Earth too quickly.

“Y-yeah. I’m okay...kinda s-sleepy." Kenma blinks into his cup. "Are you?”

Kuroo nods and shifts himself so that his legs were jutting out a little farther from the couch, spreading them slightly and taking up even more of Kenma’s space than he usually did. He doesn’t say anything, instead finishes off the rest of his punch and holds the empty cup by the rim, not really sure what to do but he was nervous and the alcohol was burning his chest.

“Yeah! I lost Bokuto and Akaashi, but...I don’t think they’d...they wouldn’t leave without me. Right?” Kuroo lets his head loll over to Kenma’s direction, eyes smudged with black liner and they were smoky and mysterious and Kenma wished he would have kept eye contact with him longer to really look at them.

He thinks black liner suited him, and black hair and black shadows and black enigma.

Hinata and Kageyama come back after what felt like years, Kenma stuck in the purgatory between relief and annoyance at wanting to be alone with him. He wouldn’t have lasted more than five minutes without having his friends there, feeling nerves bubble past the ruse of courage, but still.

Hinata waves at Kuroo while Kageyama mustered a small smile that made him look somewhat approachable, but they went back to their little bubble beside Kenma after Kuroo waves at them.

“They’d be dumb to,” Kenma says, and it makes Kuroo smile, one of treasure troves at the bottom of the sea, and he thinks that it’s maybe because he pushed him out of his comfort zone in the slightest bit and it was nice to not be freaking out over the holidays.

The alcohol was working.

“Hey. Let’s get out of here for a little.”

Kenma blinks, the weight of that statement not really registering with him until Kuroo stands up and holds his hand out for him, black long-sleeves pooling over his wrists and hiding the silver bracelet that decorated it. Kenma takes it before he has a chance to argue with himself, and Kuroo weaves through the crowd, the smell of sweat and sharp liquor heavy among the people dancing. The music was dull, yet Kenma felt alive, like pink strobe lights, as Kuroo led him to the front door, the fuse of their joined hands burning.

“The roof.” He tells him, as if he was reading his mind, and despite Kuroo occupying his thoughts nearly every day, he wishes that he wasn’t so transparent sometimes. 

“Why the roof?”

“It’s kinda too loud.” He says, and Kuroo leads Kenma to the ledge of the roof, thick cement built up and dark cracks adorning it like fractured glass.

Kuroo shrugs, and as they’re painted in alabaster, Kenma feels a wave of nerves wash over him and there are butterflies in his tummy again, in the way Kuroo kept looking back at him to make sure he was still there as they got there, like he would disappear at any second. He found it nice that Kuroo was waiting for him, despite holding onto his hand.

The air is crisp and chilly and it brushes over his warmed skin, a complete contrast to how stuffy it was in the living room. Kuroo lets go of Kenma’s hand and sits down on the cracked cement, throwing his legs over the ledge and looking down at the sidewalk below them.

The night was quiet and endless. Kuroo lets his head fall back a little, tranquil in the way he lets the moon kiss over his face and engulf him in its ivory wash, letting out a breath that felt like he’d been holding it too long. 

Kenma thinks he’s beautiful.

The world sways.

“It’s nice out,” Kuroo says, his voice whole and steady, fitting in with the nighttime and Kenma imagines breezes holding dandelions in the spring.

He sits himself right beside Kuroo, opting for keeping his legs inside rather than let them dangle on the ledge. They weren’t too high, but Kenma had crazy premonitions sometimes and he would not be chancing his life like that anytime soon.

“Yeah. Too many people...there.” Kenma was beginning to sober up as his heartbeat quickened, Kuroo shifting a little so that their shoulders were touching, sending strokes of electricity into his skin and suddenly, it felt just as warm as it did at the party.

“You don’t like a lot of people?” Kuroo asks, and Kenma feels his eyes on him again, searing with curiosity and he almost feels like he was obligated to keep his interest.

“N-no. Not really.” Kenma tells him, staring at his dirty white shoes as he kicks his legs, needing something to get his mind off of Kuroo.

They barely knew each other, yet, Kenma felt like they were very good friends. It felt like they were meant to be with each other, escaping to the roof while everyone else was at the party, like in one of those unrealistic coming of age movies. In another world, Kenma would have scoffed at it, would have said it was too cliche and kept moving.

When it came to Kuroo, it was kind of hard not to live in the moment, no matter how cheesy it seemed to him.

And Kenma thought Kuroo was _really_ good at occupying headspace.

“I understand. Sometimes, it’s hard to keep up with people. And you need a break.” Kuroo is staring at the sky, too enthralled with the stars above them to really do much else. “I get it.”

Kenma feels nervous, despite them just talking and being friends. He and Hinata did stuff like this all the time.

So what gives?

“Yeah.” He says. “Trying to keep up is exhausting...but it’s getting easier. Slowly.” Kenma shrugs, not wanting to make it into a big deal that he was sort of finding it a bit easier to open up to him. 

Maybe it was because they were on a mission and needed each other to be okay _with_ each other. And Kuroo had a strange air about him that made Kenma want to open up to him, made him want to hand him small pieces of himself that he didn’t mind giving away, made him look forward to seeing him and talking to him to get to know more about him.

He was slowly picking his locks and Kenma did not know if he was okay with how easy he made it seem.

“You just gotta open up more, Kenma.”

Kenma shakes his head, his eyes still trained on his sneakers. He said that so carelessly, as if it was just something that he could add to his to-do lists for the day. 

“It’s difficult.”

Kuroo nods, black hair nearly blue in the moonlight as the piercings in his ear mirror the stars. “I know.”

And Kenma doesn’t think he’ll ever really understand how hard it was to not be so reserved, to be so shy that it made your parents silently worry, to shut other people out because you were afraid of losing them once they got sick of you. Kuroo was brilliant, like the violet flashes of lightning during a storm, drawing in attention as easy as it was to breathe, yet he belonged.

It was natural for him.

Kenma wondered how he made it look so simple.

He finds himself turning around on the ledge and letting his legs hang beside Kuroo’s, not sure what he wants.

“You’re easy to talk to,” Kenma says, and Kuroo glances at him, setting his heart on fire. He meets his eyes for a moment, as if to say something else, and Kenma swallows once he sees Kuroo’s eyes flick to his lips once, before he breaks his sight again, the linger of electricity dying down in his veins. “Th-thank you for being my friend.”

He sees Kuroo beam one of the prettiest smiles he’s ever seen in his peripherals, almost disappointed that he was too shy to look back up at him so he could see it in all its radiance.

“You are, too,” Kuroo says, his voice soft like the flutter of bird wings against the wane of the moon. “I’m glad we met. Even though we don’t really know each other that well, yet.” 

Kenma nods, the drowsiness in the back of his head faint now that he was on the roof with Kuroo and there was no stress of strangers. His words weighed heavy in his chest, that he was easy to talk to, even if Kuroo didn’t really mean it.

It was nice to hear it come from him. 

He blinks slowly, and the world sways again, before he lets his head fall onto Kuroo’s shoulder, sober enough to feel scared, but with enough alcohol in him to not mind. They fell into a comfortable silence, while the night felt like it was put on pause for them to take each other in tonight. The streetlamps listen to their thoughts while the stars settle in their hair, and there was such a foreign familiarity in Kuroo.

He didn’t really mind at all. 

He didn’t mind the way he took up his spaces, didn’t mind the smiles and the winks from him, didn’t mind the sparks that set his bones ablaze and made his heart run rampant inside of his chest. 

And as Kuroo shuts his eyes and holds Kenma close to him, breaking down yet another boundary Kenma had put much effort into building, he decides that maybe relationships aren't a waste of time after all.


	5. thunder and the sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello this chapter is written a lil weirdly but the next one is better i promise hhh

It’s been a few more days, exactly three and half since the party.

Kenma had found it easier to talk to Kuroo when he had free time, learning that he preferred to hear Kuroo’s voice in person rather than stay with the image in his head reading texts. And Kenma hated video chat with a passion, because it gave him too much commitment and made him nervous, but for Kuroo, he decided it was okay.

He fell asleep with him on the phone twice. 

Not that he’d been counting.

The afternoon was getting ready to leave for the night as Kenma was studying for an exam he had before the week was over, the eraser of his mechanical pencil pressed into his bottom lip as he tried to ignore the weird fuzzy feeling at the bridge of his nose from the frame of his glasses. He hated them, but they helped when it came to reading things for too long.

They just made his nose feel strange, like tv static had settled itself into his skin.

His phone buzzes against the wood of his nightstand, piercing through his thoughts like a silver bullet, and his head becomes messier with the possibility of the text being from Kuroo, and his heart flutters like moths to porch lights at the thought.

Kenma rolls the eraser back and forth on his bottom lip, trying to come up with a very, _very_ good reason to stay at his desk and keep studying, to _not_ go see who was texting him as another distraction resonates throughout the room.

There were many good ones, too, but he decided to ignore them. A break would do him good, anyway.

Kenma gets up from his desk chair and takes his phone from the nightstand, flopping onto his bed, the white comforter bunched up at the foot of it while his shoulders relish in the soft mattress beneath him as he unlocks it.

 **kuro:** _hey other half_

 **kuro:** _what are u up to i miss u_

**_kuro u saw me last night_ **

**_but_ **

**_i miss u too_ **

**_but only a little_ **

**kuro:** _can we go on like a date pls_

 **kuro:** _bokuto is at work and akaashi said no when i asked him to come over <//3 _

**_i would love to!_ **

**_but_ **

**_i can’t :/_ **

**_studying for bio exam all night_ **

**kuro:** _HEYYYY I LIKE BIO_

 **kuro:** _MAYBE I COULD COME HELP U STUDY_

**_would u actually wanna do that_ **

**_is this how u wanna spend ur wednesday night_ **

**kuro:** _if it means hanging out with you then yes!_

 **kuro:** _kenma and bio?? literally what could be better_

**_u are the biggest nerd i have ever met_ **

**kuro:** _hEY nerds can be hot too_

 **kuro:** _i'll prove it do_ _u wanna hear some pick up lines_

**_uhhh_ **

**kuro:** _youre so hot you denature my enzymes ;)_

 **kuro:** _call me dna helicase bc i wanna unzip YOUR genes ;))_

**_oh my god delete my number im begging u_ **

_**u don't have to continue it's okay** _

**kuro:** _i wish i was rna so that i could have U instead ;)))_

**_OKAY ENOUGH JUST COME OVER_ **

**kuro:** _see_ _i knew they'd work_

 **kuro:** _but i have a service fee!_

 **kuro:** _one meal per visit come on keep up kenma_

**_i have ingredients to make cookies and frosting that might be a little stale_ **

**_hinata had a mental breakdown a while ago so we made cookies that night until he felt better_ **

**_it worked_ **

**_i could make you that for dinner_ **

**kuro:** _u sure do know ur way to a mans heart_

 **kuro:** _that works_

 **kuro:** _see u soon <33_

~❀~

Kenma is halfway through a recorded lecture when the doorbell rings, his brain trying its best to retain the information that he's already learned, but multitasking was not his strong suit and Kuroo was taking up more of his thoughts than he was okay with.

He gets out of his computer chair in a hurry, but he stops right at the door frame and turns over his shoulder, looking at his messy desk with papers strewn everywhere and a textbook with post-it notes stuck to the pages, black pen ink scribbled over them. In his bought of worrying, he thinks of Kuroo coming in here and seeing it. 

He suddenly feels self-conscious.

What if Kuroo thought he was a slob? What if he thought of him differently because of his bad studying habits?

Were these even _good_ studying habits?

Kenma sighs and quickly leaves the bedroom before he overthinks and leaves Kuroo outside while the rain pours over him, suddenly getting embarrassed at the thought of being insecure over him. It didn't matter what he thought.

He doesn't convince himself very well.

“Open up, other half! I brought apple juice for brainpower and motivation!”

Kenma breathes a smile at the floor and opens the door for the muffled voice behind it, feeling nervous already and he hasn't even seen him, yet.

Kuroo is there, standing tall above everyone and everything, an oversized grey hoodie pooling over his wrists as he clutches a white plastic bag from a convenience store, silver rings adorning his fingers. He looks at Kenma as if he was the only one in the world allowed to show up at his apartment on a cloudy Wednesday afternoon, a small grin tugging at his pretty lips at the sight of him. Black hair covered his eye like usual and despite Kenma being used to seeing him, he still got nervous under his gaze, _as usual._

“Hey, Kenma. Let’s get you that A!”

Kuroo was such a dork _._ Kenma doesn’t know how he’s able to make him feel like this, with his lame biology pick up lines and his _lame_ words.

He smiles anyway. “Let’s get me that A.”

Kuroo takes off his shoes just as the rain begins to tap harder on the glass panes of his window, telling Kenma he’d really have no choice but to keep Kuroo here, even when he didn’t need to study anymore. He somewhat hoped for the storm to settle enough for him to leave in time, while parts of him knew he'd be disappointed if that really were the case. 

The rain thrums harder and puts him at ease.

“When’s your test?” Kuroo asks, following Kenma into his room and it was getting dark as the clouds smothered the remainder of the sun, opting to use the window until the very last minute of daytime was still here.

“Friday. At eleven.” 

“And you’re learning…”

Kenma looks at Kuroo, and they make eye contact for a split second and in that, Kenma’s heart skips and it feels like the ground is about to give way any second. Kuroo breathes a soft giggle from his nose at seeing Kenma's cheeks betray him, and looks at the floor, his mouth in a wary grin. Kenma feels the tips of his ears warm when he thinks he might have the same effect on Kuroo as he did whenever he looked at him for a bit too long.

No, that was unlikely. Kuroo might just be shy sometimes, too.

But it was a nice thought, to break down his confidence for once, to see a more reserved part of Kuroo that he kept behind his steel doors.

“Um...gene expression. Inheritance.”

Kuroo’s eyebrows raise and Kenma thinks it’s funny how something like this piqued his interest, as if he’d been talking about a new video game or amusement park opening up down the road.

He realizes that they were two very different people.

Kuroo takes it upon himself to sit in Kenma’s desk chair, looking over his notes and flipping through the textbook pages with the post-it notes on them, keeping his hand on the page where it was originally so that he wouldn’t make Kenma lose his spot.

Kenma stands there, albeit awkwardly, finding himself exploring his messy black hair, and then connecting the silver stars in his ear, making constellations just as pretty as the ones he used to find in the sky when he was younger. His gaze skates over the slope of his button nose, getting lost in the daisies lightly scattered across his honeyed skin, and over the swell of his cherry blossom lips and the curve of his chin, dipping into the collar of his hoodie every now and then, as he looked over his writing.

“These are very good notes, Ken.” Kuroo’s voice is soft and concentrated, and Kenma wonders if this is what it’s like at his tutoring sessions for chemistry.

The air is different now. 

He liked this side of Kuroo, too.

“I tried to take a different route to study lately. Seems to be working.” Kenma stands in the doorway, kind of awkward and he tucks another strand of hair behind his ear, just to give him something to do. “I think I just need practice.”

Kuroo nods. “Practice is good for bio. It’s kinda like math. I’ll make you a practice test.” Kuroo’s eyebrows come together as his eyes run over the textbook again, before finding a blank piece of notebook paper underneath all of the notes Kenma took. “Do you mind?”

A practice test? Kenma expected for him to just reiterate, maybe show him some tricks to remembering all of this besides using flashcards.

He felt like he didn’t deserve this.

“N-no." He says, looking at the floor and letting his hair fall into his face anyway. "Not at all.”

Kuroo grins and rips about four pieces of paper out from the notebook, and gets up from the computer chair with that and one of the black pens strewn near the textbook.

“Keep studying. I will be back. And then if you get anything wrong, we’ll go over that, okay?”

“Okay.”

~❀~

“Kuro! I finished!” Kenma calls for Kuroo when the sun had gone down, the shade of the black nighttime forcing him to turn his lights on and take away the cover of being in the dark.

He always liked being in the dark when it didn’t matter.

Kenma looks over the questions, written in Kuroo’s messy, loopy handwriting that looked like it belonged spray-painted on the half-walls of alleyways, making sure he answered them in a way that was easy for him to understand. Gene expression wasn’t _so_ bad, but Kuroo threw in questions from the first couple of chapters and Kenma had a hard time remembering what he ate for breakfast in the mornings, so that kind of messed him up.

He thinks he did okay, though.

“You finished?”

He looks up at Kuroo, sees him take up what felt like the entire door frame as he stood there, that same, small smile toying with his mouth and Kenma remembers the party, when Kuroo smiled at him, just like that. It was the glint of the summer sun off of windshields in the daytime, and Kenma was afraid to blink around him in case he’d miss it again.

“Yeah. I think.” Kenma hands him the paper, his glasses tickling his nose and his hair falling into his face again as his hair tie slipped and pressed against the back of his neck.

As Kuroo looks over his test, they’re caught in a comfortable silence that Kenma never knew he wouldn’t mind, and he redoes it, eyes flicking to the analog clock on his nightstand as he gathers his hair into a bun again. It was 6:35pm, and Kenma had a slight dread in his chest at having to go to a four-hour lab tomorrow at 8, trying to figure out a good time to go to bed.

And he knew he'd stay up until at least 3am, but having goals never hurt anyone. 

“We still need to study ATP. Energy processes and all that.” Kuroo's eyebrows come together as he reads over Kenma's answers and he tries not to get disconcerted at that.

Kenma doesn’t say anything as Kuroo flips the third page over, scanning and studying and being just as thoughtful as Kenma expected. 

He kind of wished Kuroo would help him study more often. 

The thought of him not being around anymore after the holidays kind of bummed him out, rain falling over the slowly kindling embers in his chest. He'd felt many new things that revolved around Kuroo. He found it almost annoying how the same exact thing that he did not want to be bothered with was creeping up on him, and he was too prideful to ask if they could still be friends after so he could still listen to Kuroo tell him about his day or warn him about cortisol spikes or tell him terrible biology pick up lines to get him to loosen up a little.

He felt strange, because he knows he shouldn’t be thinking like this. It wasn’t a big deal.

Right?

The clock changes to 6:37.

“Okay, Kenma. I think we should take a break. And then come back to study some more.”

Kenma nods, squeezing his eyes shut and reaching his arms over his head to the moon, feeling the bones in his back pop softly and he gets a little concerned when his spine feels like jelly. 

Better, but weird.

There’s a wet sound from the ceiling, and suddenly a wash of rain blankets over the roof of his apartment, trickling cloudy skies into the gutter as a flash of lightning soaks into the asphalt. Kenma makes a face, suddenly feeling hot in his shirt as Kuroo’s lips pull into a tight line.

“I hate thunderstorms.” He says, eyebrows pulling together again and he shoves his free hand in his hoodie pocket, clutching the fabric as lightning flashed through the blinds covering Kenma’s front window. “Always have.”

Kenma somehow found comfort in thunderstorms especially.

He liked the sound of the rain, reminding him of his childhood when he would hide with his siblings in the closet and imagine fighting dragons with them, or play with toys or read picture books to pass the time when they were asleep. The rain was an uncanny connection between himself and the family he remembered as a kid, before he grew up and lived on his own, to where he couldn't hide in closets and think up more fairytales by himself. There was something about the low growling of thunder and the soft strokes of lightning on a rainy day that tethered Kenma to the heart of his home and allowed him to feel the love that brewed under the floorboards of his parents’ house, allowed him to remember the brilliant silvers that poured from the windows as he grew up.

No matter how much he silently complained about it, how many times he’s said that he dreaded setting foot in his old home again, there was no denying the closeness of it.

The rain was the same, both back then, and now.

Familiar and different, yet, the same.

“Why?” Kenma asks, and he follows Kuroo into his small kitchen as if _he_ was the one visiting.

“Too loud. I just…” Kuroo shakes his head, and Kenma tilts his head at him, giving him his undivided attention for as long as he spoke, focusing on the hesitation that clung onto his words. “Don’t really like them. It’s not so bad now, because the thunder isn't too loud, yet.”

And Kenma thinks this is so contradictory, to see Kuroo lively and just as loud as the thunder that rattled the windows from outside, yet, hated the noise and preferred quiet.

Kenma was very quiet, himself. Maybe that’s why Kuroo stuck around so much.

He stops thinking about it when his heart erupts into a mess of flutters and jives, trying to think of the next move.

_The cookies._

“I understand,” Kenma says, because he does understand but he doesn’t, not for a guy like Kuroo. “Quiet is sometimes better.”

“You’re quiet.”

_There it is._

Kenma immediately looks to the ground at the sudden call out, and he knew Kuroo didn’t mean anything by it in the way he was looking at him as he leaned on the island towards him, eyes almost daring and he’s got a crooked grin on his face, the fear of the thunder suddenly gone as he focuses on him. As if he knew Kenma would get embarrassed by that.

And he does.

“Sorry.” Kenma goes towards the cupboard where the dry stuff was, hoping he had enough ingredients from the last time he needed to make something like this, trying to think of ice and winter and everything else that was cold to hopefully combat the heat in his face, hoping that this would be enough to compensate Kuroo. 

For his stupid services.

“No, no. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I think it fits. And it makes us a good pair.” Kuroo says, Kenma choosing to actively ignore his eyes as they peered into him, studying, as if he were the practice test sitting on Kenma’s computer chair.

Learning, almost. Kenma doesn't know if he likes the attention.

“Hey, um..." He starts, hoping to switch the subject. "I’m glad to have met you, Kuro. Thank you...for sticking with me. Seriously.” Kenma says, his voice soft, and the subject was a little too touchy for him because affection was never his strong suit and talking about feelings made him extremely uncomfortable.

Kuroo would be this one exception. Only once.

“Hey, I’m supposed to be the mushy one.” Kuroo shakes his head with a smile, appreciating the sentiment and knowing how Kenma was when it came to that, in their short time of knowing each other. “Come on, other half.”

Kenma fights a grin, feeling the tension between the two halves of his heart ease up a little. “Come on and help me make these cookies.”

“Only if I could eat the leftover cookie dough.” 

Kenma pulls down both the half-empty bags of flour and sugar from the lowest shelf, standing on his tiptoes to grab the vanilla, still in the box from the grocery store.

“F-fine.” He says, struggling to reach the salt _all the way to the back of the shelf._ Who the hell put it there? 

He hears Kuroo come near him when his fingertips slip over the box once, then twice, thinking that he was going to grab a bowl or something from the cabinet, and it’s when he feels warmth behind him that his eyes blow wide, knowing he shouldn’t be feeling nervous from Kuroo grabbing the salt for him, but good _god,_ he could have moved out the way for him first.

Was this too fast?

Were they moving too fast?

Was Kuroo overstepping?

He must be overstepping.

And by the time he comes to, Kuroo hands him the salt as if it was a normal thing, nonchalantly going into his fridge to find some milk and eggs, as if this was a _regular routine_ , as if he didn’t make Kenma’s life flash before his eyes not even two seconds ago.

Kozume Kenma was hopeless.

~❀~

The rain had gotten angrier, and any awkwardness that had managed to seep through their dynamic had died out by the time Kenma managed to make frosting with the rest of the stuff he had in his cupboard.

The urge to study had been replaced with the urge to decorate the best cookie, strange shapes and questionable decorating choices becoming the highlight of the night, rather than Kenma’s biology exam by the end of the week.

He didn’t mind. Besides, he thinks he’d studied enough anyway. He didn’t want to burn out.

Either that lie would be the one he repeated to himself, or he’d have to deal with the guilt of not studying as much as he should’ve, and he liked to run away from things that remotely inconvenienced him. 

So avoiding burn-out it is.

And even then, Kenma wasn’t really sure if this was the route he wanted to take, being on the fence about it for a while. He didn’t want to disappoint his parents by doing something other than taking the university/grad school route, but he hated studying and still didn’t know if this was the right path for him. He was only a freshman, so he had time to change his mind, but it was just the weight of his parents being upset with him had he chosen to do something else that frightened him.

His parents never once expressed letdown in him, but they were dead set on him and his siblings attending university. They made it clear. He hated thinking about—

“—thinking about, Kenma?”

Kenma blinks, pulls himself back to his environment, and he finds himself sitting on the island, a bowl of red frosting in his hand, his fingers curled around the whisk a bit too hard.

“Just..." He eases up, lightly playing with the frosting as he figures out how to word it. "I don’t really know if I want to...study biology anymore.”

Kuroo nods in understanding. “We don't have to finish today. We could study another time!”

Kenma shakes his head, finding more insecurities in the color of the frosting, his point not reaching as obviously as he thought. “I’m saying, like...as a major. I don’t want to be a biologist. But I don’t want to disappoint my parents.”

“Oh! Okay…” Kuroo steps back from the counter and stands in front of Kenma, ready to give him his full attention and it makes Kenma’s heart soar. “What do you like doing? Or, what do you see yourself doing in the future?”

“Playing video games, or...managing my own company. It'd be nice to get into stocks...branch out and make my own money...see how far I could get.” Kenma shrugs, Kuroo leaning against the counter opposite of him, tilting his head.

“Why not do all of that? You could definitely become a CEO or something if you begin to work for it now. You don’t even have to drop out, just change your major to computer science, to get a head start on how to make a video game. There are also free coding classes. You have many options, Ken. Don’t let your parents’ expectations limit you.”

Kenma feels a breeze in his chest at that.

“It’s easier said than done, Kuro.” Kenma’s feels strange, having someone other than Hinata listen to his worries and actually try to help him.

Kuroo reminded him of being whole, in that way.

“I know. But it’s good to start thinking of it, now. And who knows!” Kuroo beams as a new idea settles itself on his lips and Kenma has to look away from it. “Maybe your parents won’t be disappointed at all. Have they said anything about it?”

Kenma shakes his head. “They just want me to be happy. But expect me to stay in school.”

“Sometimes breaking expectations will get you farther than keeping up with them.”

Kenma knows that all too well. He thinks Kuroo is reading his mind, even when he’s not around.

And he actually felt a bit better about it. He decided, as he’s mixing the frosting, that he would talk to an advisor tomorrow, figure things out along the way. 

“...Thank you, Kuro. Um, you...actually helped. A lot. So, thanks.”

“Anything for you, other half. And thank you for letting me stay here longer than I was supposed to.” Kuroo tells him, pressing one of the misshapen cookie cutters into the dough beside Kenma, the sentiment staying sedentary in his chest while Kuroo moved on to something else.

Kenma nods shyly and scrapes extra powdered sugar off of the sides of the metal bowl he had in his hands with the whisk, the rain showering over the roof of his apartment while the amber light from the oven illuminates shadows onto the tile beneath them.

“I couldn’t let you go out in the rain.” 

And he knows he’ll most likely forget everything when the test came around, but he still appreciated the effort and added Kuroo’s willingness to the small list of things he’d always remember about him.

His full brown eyes were at the top of it.

“Do you wanna taste this?” Kenma says out loud, his eyes trained on the frosting as it ribbons scarlet silk back into the bowl, interested in it as if he’d been a scientist with a breakthrough at the tips of his fingers.

And it felt like it anyway, Kenma never really following recipes, to begin with. He was more into just throwing together what he thought would taste good and hoping for the best.

It usually came out okay.

“Sure.”

Kuroo dips his thumb into the middle of the bowl, and normally Kenma would have found that gross if it were anyone else, but he didn't think about it so much. He watches him guide his thumb to his lips, before quickly swiping it over Kenma’s nose instead. 

He gasps and moves away, Kuroo smiling and pressing his thumb into his mouth. 

“It’s pretty good, I think.” 

Kenma smells nothing but vanilla and makes a face, and Kuroo chuckles at the sour look.

“Kuro. I hate you.” Kenma looks at the red patch on his nose, feels his cheeks warm and he knows that his skin probably matched the color, anyway.

“Wow. You really _are_ a terrible liar.” He says, reaching past Kenma to the paper towel dispenser behind him. 

Kenma doesn’t move, a pout still on his lips as he waits for Kuroo to wipe off his nose. They were close, his heart nearly deafening in his ears as Kuroo gently holds onto his chin to keep him still, the silence they fell in less than comfortable as there are unspoken boundaries being broken, Kuroo gently wiping the frosting away from Kenma’s skin. 

Kenma blames the warmth on the oven being on. 

“You have a very cute nose.” Kuroo comments, just to be annoying (and see Kenma flush again, he _knew_ it), before Kenma looks into the frosting bowl and wishes he could jump out the window behind him, maybe run out to the end of the street and collect his thoughts in the moon, trying to keep up with him.

They were very jumbled.

He was very confused.

“You have a...st-stupid one.” 

Kuroo clutches his shirt where his heart was, making a face like he was in pain, despite finding Kenma’s defense endearing. “My heart! You're killing me, Kenma. How am I supposed to go on—”

Kenma smiles and pushes Kuroo's forehead with the hand that was not holding the bowl, just as the oven beeps. Kuroo hums, supposing he’d tease him again some other time, and Kenma was sure this frosting was done but he kept mixing to pass the time, just to subdue any awkwardness that could come up from him doing nothing.

The sky is split as thunder raves, and while Kenma liked the thought of high winds and cold rain outside, where it couldn’t touch them, Kuroo was beginning to think of floods and power outages. Kenma had noticed he’d gone quiet after turning off the oven, and while he really disliked the thought of checking up on someone who probably didn’t even need it, he found himself asking anyway.

“The thunder is just...loud,” Kuroo tells him, pursing his lips and shaking his head, trying not to make it into a big deal. “But it’s okay. It’s fine.”

Kenma studies him, wondering if there was more to Kuroo than what he was really letting on. He didn’t know of anything to really bother him like this.

Thunderstorms were good to Kenma, but maybe they weren’t so good to Kuroo. 

He gets an idea, kind of childish and cheesy, but he pushes himself to do it, setting his pride in his back pocket to save for later.

“I will be back. Do you think you can hold out for a little?” Kenma asks, setting the frosting bowl in the spot where he just was and making his way to the doorframe of the kitchen. 

“Y-yeah. I’ll be fine!” He says, but there was a caution in his voice and Kenma didn’t like the absence of volume so much.

He decides he’d be quick, and makes his way to the linen closet, taking out all of his extra sheets and blankets with the thought of Kuroo feeling a little better. It was the least he could do for him, especially after today.

And it was his third time making a pillow fort in ages, taking what he learned from his siblings about the _sturdiness of pillows by density and volume_ to make the best fort Kuroo's ever seen. It was pretty mediocre in the end, but he thinks he did a pretty good job judging by the smile Kuroo gave him after seeing it, as he tugged him out of the kitchen by his wrist into the living room.

He feels his pulse under his fingertips.

It’s fast.

“I thought this might help. We could hide from the storm in it.” Kenma says, keeping his eyes on the blankets as a corner of it slides down the curve of one of his dining chairs, toppling it and ruining the shape a bit. “You did a lot for me, today. So I figured this would help you.”

Kuroo sighs dramatically, a hand on his heart again, like how he did in the kitchen.

“You are so good to me, Kenma.”

Kenma makes a face. “I’m going to throw up.”

The rain had let up enough for them to finish, the kitchen smelling like sugar, and while Kenma and Kuroo start new conversations beneath the security of the blanket this time, he finds himself actually looking forward to spending the holidays with him.

The two of them were stark opposites, yet fell similar to each other in certain regards. There were many twists and knots to Kuroo that Kenma had been getting stuck on, and while he listened to him talk, speaking to him as if they’d known each other for a lifetime rather than a week, he decided he didn’t mind taking the time to unravel them, no matter how long it took.

He thinks that he should stay in the light more often.


	6. yellow flowers

It’s been another week.

Kuroo was able to convince Kenma to see him every day since he'd helped him study, and despite Kenma feeling guilty for taking Kuroo away from his roommate and his tutoring at his university, he couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of pride at the fact that Kuroo prioritized him.

He would never admit it to anyone, though.

And even when he was gone, Kenma still thought about him. He couldn’t get him out of his head, couldn’t get his smile like diamonds and his windchime laugh out of his head, or the phantoms of his fingers off of his hands or out of his hair. He still thought about him, wanted to hear his voice more often than not, and looked forward to the next time they could hang out together.

And their dates often felt real, despite it being all for show.

But Kenma didn’t like thinking about that last bit so much.

Here he was now, on the way to his parent’s house while the sun was setting, opting to leave a little later in the day to avoid as many questions as he could. He’s made up about fifty scenarios in his head revolving around his family and Kuroo, about half of them making him want to die on the spot.

He hoped that they didn’t ask any personal questions or made any invasive comments because his parents were the type to not know boundaries and he was _not_ the type of person to laugh it off and switch the conversation.

He was thankful that Kuroo was, but even then, his family could be brutal.

And then he thinks that maybe, he was being too dramatic.

“What are you thinking about, Kenma?”

Kenma blinks, brings himself back to his sense, and finds himself passing a highway marker with Kuroo in the passenger’s seat, soft indie floating around the car while a muffled topaz melts through the window, fuschias and yellows weeping over the sky like phoenix wings set on fire. His heart skips as Kuroo tilts his head while looking at him, always so ready to listen and talk with him, even if he didn’t have much to say, to begin with.

“The dinner. I’m kind of scared.”

“Oh, yeah. Me, too.” Kuroo looks out the window, and Kenma notices he was playing with the stray threads in the hole of his jeans, gold covering his knee as his fingers danced nervously on the black denim. “But we should be okay. We’ve been okay so far.”

Kenma nods, passing a car in the left lane, before he slows down, checking the speed limit. 

He was fine, but he still felt like he was going too fast, the ruse of adrenaline mixing with his blood and setting him up for more stress that he didn't need.

“Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, again. You really didn’t have to do this.” Kenma says, finding the statement weird but not as awkward as he’d imagined.

“Neither did you." Kuroo says, and Kenma misses the grin his gives him as he lolls his head towards him. "So thank you.”

Kenma’s lips house a small smile at how Kuroo somehow managed to make it cheesy, and he appreciates him either way and thinks of how different he was from Hinata, Kageyama, even Bokuto. He’s met the latter once, and in that short window, understood just how they were friends.

Kuroo often felt too strong for someone like him, making things that scared Kenma look easy, opening up doors that he'd rather kept locked so effortlessly, it was frightening. But he still liked him regardless.

“We’re about twenty minutes away from the house,” Kenma says, spotting an exit marker and seeing the only chicken joint in the vicinity. 

He used to go there with his siblings after school sometimes, ordering the same thing every time because he was too afraid of getting something he didn’t really like.

He didn’t seem to change after all.

“Okay." Kuroo says, following his glance out of the window at the city below them, the trees reduced to blurs of citrine outside of the window. "I won’t fall asleep on you.” 

Kuroo did end up falling asleep on Kenma, anyway, but he liked the silence and collected his thoughts in the way his chest rose and fell, while the radio station echoed lackluster tunes that reminded him of summer and how rain falls over tiger lilies in the spring.

It was nice.

Kenma found that he was happiest alone, but Kuroo was slowly worming his way into his happy spaces and leaving marks on his fondest memories, and more often than not, he found that he was happiest with unsolicited smiles and the rollercoaster drops that came with Kuroo. He was slowly turning his beliefs on their heads in such a short amount of time.

This was weird.

Kenma hums absentmindedly to the song playing as he takes the exit to get his mind off of the fact that he was getting so close to his parents’ house with a guy who was _literally_ pretending to be his boyfriend for free meals, his voice carrying off the lyrics but the sound was enough to distract him. If you were to tell him he'd be doing this after searching on Craigslist out of all places, he would laugh at you.

What the fuck.

Well, technically, they were friends now, so it wasn’t too weird for them to show up together, anyway. Technically, they _were_ partners, here on a mission. So it wasn't really a lie.

Right?

“I could feel your nerves from here, other half. You’ve gotta relax.” Kuroo says, breaking his train of thought and nearly scaring him at the sudden noise, his voice low and nearly blending with the whir of the tires against the asphalt.

His eyes were still shut, but he was facing the dashboard this time, the tip of his nose lightly brushed with rubies, as if he’d just woken up in the morning.

Kenma thinks about what he’d actually look like in the morning and flushes.

And then he thinks that he’s actually going to see what he looks like in the morning once they reach his parents' house and wants to jump out of the window again.

“Sorry. J-just nervous." He swallows dry, like a fish out of water. "What the hell am I even gonna say? How do I introduce you?” Kenma felt like going off on a tangent, but he stopped himself, using one hand to tuck stray hairs behind his ear from where they wouldn’t stay in the hair tie, giving his hands something to do.

He takes a breath through his nose and focuses on the street, the familiar neighborhood coming into view and his chest feels completely empty now at the impending doom that was waiting behind that dark wooden door.

“Just say I’m your partner. We met at the fair or something. The easy stuff.” Kuroo shakes his head in dismissal and glances at Kenma, who’s eyebrows were knitted together and he truly looked stressed out, and Kuroo kind of felt bad for him because he knew how Kenma could get when it came to this.

“The fair? Kuro, that’s lame.” Kenma turns down the street, houses caked in beige and white paint lining the streets, while hilly plains and trees along the landscape made up their backyards, grass blades covered in a carpet of fallen autumn leaves. 

“Okay. We met at a cafe. You work there part-time. I came in for a coffee, you made it for me. I thought it was the most amazing coffee I’ve ever had. I fell in love with your coffee skills, one thing led to another, and now, here we are.” Kuroo throws ideas around, and despite being enough to work with, Kenma feels that separation in him that warns him right away. 

He doesn't know if he'll be able to stick to it.

Kenma glances at his hands on the steering wheel as they pull into the driveway, his siblings' cars already packed near the lawn and across the street under the huge oak tree Kenma used to dream of climbing sometimes. He wanted to reach the top and look at the rest of the world, wanted to see opportunity float above the clouds and feel like the only person in the world allowed to be up there.

He kind of missed being a kid. Things were easier back then.

Kenma sighs through his nose, shaking his head. “I am a bad liar, Kuro. You know that.”

“Didn’t you take three years of theater in middle school?”

Kenma sighs again, looking at the door to his parents’ house as the car hums, the white noise acting as encouragement for him to get out and go do what he needs to do. He feels like he’s about to rob a bank or something crazy, his heart beating way too hard against his ribcage for him to be comfortable with.

This was too difficult and Kenma hated being uncomfortable more than anything else.

“I was tech. You really think I could memorize lines for a whole crowd of people?” Kenma’s thin eyebrows raise in emphasis, and Kuroo has to chuckle at his expression.

“Kenma~. We will be fine.” Kenma shuts the car off, his fingers beginning to sweat as his hands clam up, the key slipping out of his grasp and falling onto the floor of the car by his feet. Kuroo perks up for a moment, an idea plugging itself into his head again. “I want you to practice calling me pet names. So it’s easier.”

Kenma groans when he hits his head trying to get the keys at the shock, and Kuroo tsks. 

“Pet names?” Kenma asks, lightly rubbing the spot where he banged his head on the car interior, giving Kuroo a look. “Like what?”

Kuroo shrugs, his eyes going to the warm orange color that had melted through the windshield and cast pretty shapes onto his jeans. “Like..." He shrugs again, shy. "Just pet names.”

Kenma thinks back to the party and rose petals splash over his skin.

“I will just call you Kuro,” Kenma says, and Kuroo shakes his head, almost exasperated. 

“No way, Ken. We need more. Just call me, like...I dunno…like, ‘sweetie’ or something.”

 _“Sweetie?”_ Kenma feels the bile rise up in his throat. “Kuro, I can’t.”

Kuroo shifts in the passenger seat to face Kenma, bending his knee and resting his hands on his calf, silver rings gleaming in the light.

“Say it with me.”

And Kenma thinks this is so ridiculous, but he finds himself sounding out the syllables for the word, and the more his brain runs over it, the worse it sounds coming from his mouth.

_Swee-tie._

“Perfect!” Kuroo jokes, as if Kenma had been a child at lessons. Kenma makes another face that Kuroo laughs at, and he feels okay for now. Still nervous, but okay. “Now, greet me.”

Kenma blinks at him, ready to turn the car back around and head to his apartment, or literally _anywhere else_ that wasn’t here. Kuroo was waiting, patient and normal, as if this was a daily thing the two did, practicing calling each other pet names outside of his _friggin’_ parents’ house.

He would never understand it.

Kenma takes a breath and looks at the center console, lightly tugging his sweater sleeves over his fingers as if it would hide him away from the inconvenience, like it would help the situation. 

“Hello, _sweetie._ Cannot...wait for you to meet my family, _sweetie_.” He says through clenched teeth, the weird feeling bubbling up in his chest and he doesn’t think he could take any more of this for the rest of the day.

“You're a professional, Kenma. Are you ready?” Kuroo asks, tilting his head with that same gentle curiosity and Kenma wonders what he was truly asking about sometimes. 

Kenma nods anyway, not wanting to drag this out any longer, the desire to hide away beneath his covers getting stronger the more his bedroom beckons him from the second floor. He glances out of the window as Kuroo gets out of the passenger’s seat, seeing the same transparent, white curtains he used to love, glittery and thin. He remembers watching the ceiling sometimes when the sun hit them at the perfect angle, and they casted disco ball glints against the white stucco and allowed his mind to roam while staying in the confines of his room.

He would watch it for hours, imagining constellations on a starry night for when the night was away.

He swallows and gets out, going to grab his suitcase from the backseat. He glances at Kuroo, catching his eyes and a warm smile that makes petals ruffle in his chest, before meeting him in the front of his car, locking the door behind him.

The alarm was enough to push Kenma into overdrive, feeling his heart sink as he looked into the wooden door. The noise was enough to make it known that it was real, that this was not some sort of fever dream, that he was here with Kuroo, like he'd been thinking about for the past few weeks.

“Grab my hand,” Kuroo says, thinking (okay, _hoping)_ that Kenma’s parents would have heard the car alarm and were on their way to greet them as they got closer to the door.

 _“What?”_ Kenma asks, thinking he didn’t hear him correctly.

Kuroo doesn’t say anything else once the door opens, just like he’d thought, slipping his hand into Kenma’s quickly and lacing their fingers together. Kenma’s eyes blow wide and he lets his head hang as he hears his mom’s voice, and his dad’s laugh, and he’s hoping now would be the moment the earth opens up and swallows him whole.

It never did.

And when they came out, his mom was so excited when she greeted them, putting on one of those smiles that Kenma’s only seen her do before seeing her in-laws, and Kenma blushes because he really can’t think of a reason for her to be this energetic, his fingers trembling and slotted in between Kuroo’s and the other stroked reassurance into his skin with the pad of his thumb.

“Hello! Kenma, who’s this?”

Kenma felt awkward already, barely saying anything to them without feeling like a spotlight was on him, his cheeks on fire and his heart feeling too big to stay beating in his chest like this. He was lucky that Kuroo introduced himself for him, even luckier that he was just as polite as he looked and his parents didn’t ask too many questions, yet.

“This is Kuroo.” He says to the sidewalk, and Kuroo smiles at them, squeezing Kenma’s hand. “My, uh...my partner.”

The embarrassment was at a 10, maybe an 11, once they introduced themselves to him, Kuroo letting go of Kenma’s hand to bow at them, being more than polite, like he really had plans to become part of the family soon. And with the way their eyes glimmered in the shadow of the twilight, he could tell that they were already fawning over him, even if they didn’t directly show. Kuroo had this strange charm — it was just kind of hard not to like him.

Kenma found it extremely difficult himself.

It would be harder to get rid of him.

His parents had cooked for them already, warming the food on the stove after his siblings ate first, insisting to give them privacy and to talk more in the morning, considering it was late. Kenma was almost glad that his parents got tired easily and that his siblings had gone to bed early, having to answer zero questions and deal with no teasing for now.

He knew he’d get it from them sometime soon, but it was good to ease into the newfound embarrassment instead of diving headfirst, like he'd been expecting.

And then Kenma thinks he was being a little too dramatic again.

It wasn’t until they were headed up the stairs towards his old bedroom that he realized he only had one bed in there. It was not very big, perfect for someone who liked to sleep as if he was not five-foot-six, curling into balls or sticking to a fraction of the bed, depending on how he felt that day.

He swallows once Kuroo opens the door, his room bringing comfort and danger to him at the same time. The cactuses he’d left by the window were still green and scary looking, the books he never got around to were still in his bookshelf, the video games he played were still stacked below the television.

Everything was still the same, and it felt good to let Kuroo in here, even if it wasn’t as real as it looked.

“What a nice room!” Kuroo whisper-yells, as if Kenma’s siblings had been right behind the door, shutting it behind him and looking at the ceiling.

What was left of the sunlight sang to the curtains, casting the same stars he used to look at from his bed in the morning, but they were sparse this time as night threatened to come quickly.

He turns on the light and they vanish.

“Thanks. I tried to decorate it...like me.” Kenma says, remembering the band posters he had up at one point, and the wall paintings he tried to do that were now covered in a mid-tone navy blue. He still had the fairy lights and the plants and video games that _felt_ like his own, even though the wall was mostly bare now and didn't hold as much of his childhood as he remembered.

“It definitely feels like you,” Kuroo says, glancing at the fairy lights as he makes his way to Kenma’s video game rack. 

“Feels like me?” Kenma asks, his voice light as he half-smiles, trying to figure that out.

Feels like him...what?

“I just mean like…” Kuroo shrugs, running his fingers over the plastic cases of Kenma’s video game collection, admiring how the material felt under his fingertips. Kenma could tell Kuroo wasn't really interested in games growing up. It makes him want to find out how he was back then, too. “It feels good in here. Like home. Cozy.”

And Kenma flushes when he thinks about what he said, keeping it in the back of his head to remember later. 

He watches Kuroo take pieces of his own personality in, keeps his eyes on him as Kuroo picks up one of the plushies on his bed and studies his video games, then his cactuses by the windowsill, then to his fairy lights and the polaroids of him and Hinata and Lev hanging from clothespins on them, turning around and looking into the bathroom while running his hand over the back of the small black loveseat Kenma used for gaming.

It was like he had landed on the moon. 

Kuroo was so interesting, even when he was interested in something else. Kenma found a weird sense of closeness in Kuroo, as dignity makes its way into his chest, knowing that Kuroo found him interesting, too, in the way his eyes waterfall over every aspect of the room. His bedroom was his safe haven, somewhere where he found refuge away from the world when he really needed it. It was weird to say out loud, but he always felt safe here. 

Letting Kuroo explore his safe spaces was something he found he didn’t mind so much, either.

“-looking at me like that?” 

Kenma blinks, and meets Kuroo’s eyes, pretty as slivers of sun slash through them, reminding him of topaz. He looks away quickly, crossing his arms and feeling another wave of heat flood his cheeks. 

“I wasn’t.” Kenma grumbles, his heart the only thing he could really hear clearly. 

Kuroo catching him staring was probably worse than kissing him in front of his parents.

“Mhm.” Kuroo hums at him, the corner of his lips twitching into a smile, but he drops it and looks to the ground, noticing how the usual warm light was slowly trickling into one of ivory. “It’s almost nighttime. There’s only one bed.” 

Kenma swallows and looks to his bed, as if he hadn't noticed before, trying to find a spot to sleep. He predicted that Kuroo would sleep in about five different positions depending on his height. If he kept to the corner, he could curl up on the end of the bed while Kuroo slept near the pillows. Or maybe, he would sleep at an angle, and Kenma could keep to himself on the very edge.

Or maybe he’d sleep on the floor. 

He’s always wanted to try that.

“I could sleep on the loveseat?” Kuroo asks, and Kenma nods quickly, not wanting to put much effort into thinking too much over something that didn't need it. 

“If you want to.” 

There is a weird silence that has many implicit questions and wonders and curiosities within it, buzzing and loud and impertinent, but Kenma ignores them. He was thinking that he wanted Kuroo to sleep on the bed, but he also didn’t want to ask because that would be too trying. 

Hm.

“Do you want to take a shower first?” Kenma focuses his attention on the open bathroom door near his closet, keeping his eyes downturned and hoping that the lack of lighting in here would hide his cheeks. 

“No. You go. It’s your room.” Kuroo says, going back to the cactuses and studying the tiny flowers that had bloomed while Kenma had been away.

They were pretty, and yellow, sparsely placed on them like someone had spent their time with them. 

They reminded him of Kuroo. 

“O-okay. I’ll be quick.” Kenma says, knowing damn well that he would not be quick and would be thinking about this strange exchange of words instead of scrubbing the concern from the trip up here out of his skin, but he decided not worry about it, yet.

And as he’s looking at himself in the mirror with the door closed, wondering if his appearance changed as much as he felt his habits did, he thinks he found more of Kuroo within his home, within his room, within the glittery curtains and the flowers and the warm sheets that he wouldn’t mind getting lost in every once in a while.

~❀~

Kenma could not sleep.

On top of the fact that the trip up here was exhausting and his parents gave them a huge meal to sleep on, they kept the thermostat on negative _freezing_ at night because it was _good for the skin_ or something. Kenma swore it was one of those lies parents told their children to make them stop asking questions.

The blankets he used to sleep with as a kid were always more than enough because he had been so small back then.

They did not help at all tonight.

Kuroo had taken the other side of the bed through Kenma’s conscience coming back to bite him in the ass before it was truly time to sleep, and despite turning his back to him in silent protest, he felt terrible. His bed seemed very small compared to last year, when he was in here alone. 

He listens to the soft snores coming from the other side of his bed and tries to ignore the warm fuzzy feeling that pooled in the pit of his stomach.

He reminds himself that this... _thing..._ they’ve got going on, is not real. It just felt like it was sometimes, especially when Kuroo would smile at him like he was the only person in the world allowed to look at something so pretty up close, or hold his hand and rub his thumb against his skin when talking to his parents, or insisting that he take the loveseat when Kenma was sort of projecting through the excuse of being a bad host.

Whatever that means.

It felt especially real when Kuroo was sleeping soundly beside him and the world was tempted to slow down just so they could stay here for a little while longer, just so Kenma could bask in the domesticity that he thinks he'd been missing.

Kenma curls in on himself and hides his blushing face into his pillow, despite there only being the company of the moon and the shadows protecting his blooming cheeks.

There is a sudden vibration on the mattress beside him and the ruffling of the sheets, breaking him out of his thought.

Kenma’s eyes blow wide as Kuroo takes a deep breath, bones feeling like solid ice when he feels him shift and face him and curl his hands in the blanket they were sharing. He stares at the silhouette of the cactuses by his windowsill and scoots himself as close to the edge as possible, the threat of falling off the mattress less dire than being pressed against Kuroo in this case. 

The flowers wink at him.

“Kuro?”

He feels like neon strobe lights in the darkness, yet Kuroo was still pretty far from him and he hadn’t figured him out to be much of a cuddler.

So what gives?

“It is too cold. It woke me up.” Kenma could practically see the pout on his lips, and he smiles.

He understands, having that happen to him a few times and always being upset by it when he’d get pulled out of a good dream as a kid. He slips a little more of his part of the blanket off of him to give to Kuroo, silently hoping he’d get the message and use them to keep warm. 

“We should cuddle!” Kuroo whisper-yells, like an excited kid, and Kenma feels his eyes boring holes into the back of his skull and his heart thrums nearly too loud in his ears at that, waiting for an answer.

Did Kuroo not understand the weight of a statement like that?

This was too much. Way too much.

He knew Kuroo to say what was on his mind more often than not. That was bold.

“No way!” Kenma whisper-yells right back at him, as if his parents were hiding somewhere in the room, waiting to catch them in the act of pretending to be together.

“Why~?” Kuroo whines, and there is more shifting and Kenma is practically praying he didn’t scoot himself closer. 

“Because.”

Kuroo huffs and moves again, and with the movement on the mattress, Kenma’s back lightly brushes against Kuroo’s shoulder. He’s lying on his back. “Fine. But you’re missing out. Lame-o.”

Kenma can’t help but grin a little bit at that, at how Kuroo was acting. He was glad that he never took anything too personal, or seriously. It was doing him good to have him by his side like this. 

And Kenma kind of wished he told Kuroo yes, just to see what it was like. Just to explore that idea.

Maybe.

He felt weird again.

They fall into a comfortable silence, Kuroo shivering only once while Kenma felt his own fingertips turn to lead from where the blanket didn't cover them. He makes fists and focuses his attention on the cold, and while he’s staring at the void of the shadows that had swallowed his skin, he can’t help but reminisce on today, on earlier. 

Something as simple as holding hands had imprinted itself onto his conscience and it made him almost miss it. 

Kuroo was so close, yet Kenma always felt so far from him.

He reminded him very much of stars, pretty constellations that were so big and beautiful when you got to the right point, able to reach out and brush your fingertips against the shapes that cast across the sky. There is always an urge to want to explore, to want to take a rocket out of the Milky Way and grab the constellations with your bare hands, to feel them, to make sure they really were as astonishing as they looked down on earth. Kuroo was black holes and gamma-ray bursts and nebulas and pulsars, all vibrant with an enigma that Kenma found increasingly difficult to not think about as time passed. 

The earth’s most wonderful nighttime phenomena, all wrapped up in a boy that Kenma knew nearly nothing about, dozing off beside him and wrapped in his favorite blanket.

He feels lucky that someone so alluring had stuck by him, even when their plan was built from soggy wooden promises and dull tape that had lost its adhesive. 

He feels lucky to have Kuroo. Even if it was for show.

“Hey, Kenma!” Kenma thinks that Kuroo must have been too cold to really fall back asleep, though he'd tried to. 

“Yes?”

“If you were a tree, what kind would you be?”

Kenma looks over his shoulder, sees him looking up at the ceiling in thought in what little light is filtering through the window, thinking that maybe he didn't hear him correctly. “What did you say?”

“Like, a tree.” Kuroo glances at him, and they make eye contact before Kenma goes back to facing the wall. “You know...like...a tree.”

Kenma decides to humor him, thinking that maybe this was one of those psychological tricks to know more about someone before they had a chance to figure out what was going on. 

He sighs through his nose, thinking.

“I dunno.” He shakes his head, and his hair against the pillow makes a sound like falling rain. “Probably, like...an elm." He shrugs, and there is more rain. "Or a willow.”

Kuroo gasps softly. “I could _definitely_ see you as a willow.”

And Kenma thought it was strange for Kuroo to not get caught up in him saying no to such a simple request, something that most couples do without hesitating. He felt like he was about to go into overdrive, thinking way too much about Kuroo’s feelings over something so minuscule, knowing that he probably was still thinking about willow trees rather than keeping warm _._

He sighs, feeling like he was accepting defeat more than embracing something that should be routine.

“—like Spanish Moss. And—”

“H-hey, Kuro?” 

“...Yes?” He asks, his voice sleepy with a flare of excitement from Kenma's answer, the question more like a statement as Kenma interrupted his train of thought.

“Why are you being so nice to me? How come you still agreed to come?” He asks, thinking back to the circle of people he knew and wondering how many of them would truly do something like this for him. 

Kuroo shifts to face him again, and Kenma immediately regrets asking a question that puts his heart on blast like that. 

“Oh. Well, we’re friends, aren’t we? Friends are nice to each other and do favors for one another. Don’t you think you deserve that?” 

“But I haven’t really done anything for you, yet.”

Kuroo smiles and shuts his eyes, though Kenma can’t see it.

“I definitely wouldn’t say that.”

And Kenma swallows when he speaks to him, patient like always, and it makes his butterflies jive. He didn’t expect an answer like that. He didn’t really know _what_ he was expecting, but it definitely was not that.

Kenma thinks he’s too good. 

So instead of saying anything else, he wills himself to fight with his head, and turns around to face Kuroo, ducking and scooting himself closer to him, the blanket lying over them. He’s shaking but it was not from the cold, and he manages to get his hands in between them while his front pressed against Kuroo, giving him some sort of leeway in case he couldn’t handle the commitment, balling his hands up in the front of his shirt.

Kuroo really was freezing, even with the blanket. He kind of felt bad.

He didn’t _want_ to feel bad, but he did.

He jabs his leg quite aggressively in between Kuroo’s (in silent protest, too, but he doesn’t think Kuroo would understand his plight).

Kenma feels Kuroo’s arm tense beneath his head for a moment, before he cautiously throws a part of the blanket over Kenma, hugging the curve of his lower back and keeping him close. Kenma makes a face, the warm fuzzy feeling overtaking the entirety of his stomach and he feels like throwing up as he drowns in it, the closeness making him feel wary and scared and gross.

He thinks of yellow flowers and the big tree across the street instead.


	7. cygni and sirius

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!! 
> 
> sorry for the late chapter ;-; i've been writing a lot so i have a few updates coming soon!! i have an idea of how i want the rest of the plot to go down so i'm super excited to write it and finish it with you!
> 
> also! i know i have some weird imagery in here that might be a little confusing, but i've been trying to refine my writing and make it as vivid as possible without being too much. it's a process and i'm lowkey struggling hhh but if you're still here, thank you for bearing with me and sticking around!! i will keep practicing to get better (◠﹏◠✿)
> 
> pls enjoy
> 
> p.s. i know canon kenma does not have any siblings! they are here for just a few scenes that i think add to his and kuroo's characterization. i know it can be weird for only children to have made up siblings in fics to some people so if that's weird i'm sorry!! they play the teensiest role i promise

**shouyou:** _KENMAAAAA_

 **shouyou:** _how are the parents_

 **shouyou:** _and tell ur siblings i said hello! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧_

 **shouyou:** _and kuroo!_

**_they’re okay_ **

**_they haven’t gotten a chance to ask us too many questions so i think we’re good_ **

**_for now_ **

**_i’m dreading tomorrow though ;-;_ **

**_i texted them that u said hello_ **

**_kaiyo says hi and hopes that u kept your hair orange_ **

**_himari gave u kisses and a lot of heart emojis_**

**_kuroo is still sleeping <//3_**

**shouyou:** _they are so nice ;-;_

 **shouyou:** _i did keep my hair orange i’m never dying it!_

 **shouyou:** _i miss u very much_

 **shouyou:** _i woke up sweating last night_

 **shouyou:** _i think im actually having withdrawals from u being gone_

**_PLEASE u are so dramatic_ **

**_i miss u a lot too though ;-;_ **

**_lets go out for ice cream when we get back_ **

**_oh and my parents like kuroo! very relieved_ **

**_maybe taking advice from you isn’t such a terrible idea_ **

**_how’s your family?_ **

**shouyou:** _well well well how the turn tables,,,,_

 **shouyou:** _and my family is the same_

 **shouyou:** _they still like tobio more than me <//3 _

**shouyou:** _and natsu joined her school’s volleyball team T-T she said she really liked it and is making friends!_

 **shouyou:** _my baby sister really is growing up o(╥﹏╥)o_

**_how cute!!! i love natsu_ **

**_are you guys going to the labor festival tomorrow?_ **

**shouyou:** _yessir_

 **shouyou:** _i hope to see fireworks on new year’s!_

 **shouyou:** _SPEAKING OF_

 **shouyou:** _are u gonna kiss kuroo on new years_

 **shouyou:** _since ur a,,,,, couple,,,, and all_

**_i will smack u_ **

**_we are not a couple!_ **

**shouyou:** _mmm_

 **shouyou:** _i just dont get how youve been pretend dating this guy for like four weeks and have not caught feelings yet_

 **shouyou:** _maybe u have more willpower than u let on kenma (◡‿◡✿)_

 **shouyou:** _its okay to have a crush on someone, you know_

**_a crush?? shouyou we’re not children_ **

**_i am fine_ **

**_i dont need a boyfriend_ **

**_i dont want one!_ **

**_we’re just friends!!!_ **

**shouyou:** _the number of exclamations says otherwise_

 **shouyou:** _weve been friends since middle school, i know you_

 **shouyou:** _just the fact that u told me that ur parents like kuroo when i didn’t even ask means that u are in l word with him_

**_i—_ **

**_um_ **

**_shouyou are u there??_ **

**_hello???_ **

**_omg ur breaking up_ **

**_oh noooo_ **

**shouyou:** _KENMA_

 **shouyou:** _WE’RE LITERALLY TEXTING I CANT BREAK UP_

**_shouyou?? hello???? whered u go???_ **

**shouyou:** _this conversation is not over i see u in three weeks and know where u live_

 **shouyou:** _U CANT HIDE FROM YOUR FEELINGS KOZUME KENMA_

~❀~

When Kuroo wakes up, he is not far from Kenma, while the other had his head on a pillow and was focused on his cell phone in his hand. 

Kuroo blinks, feeling a lot warmer than last night as he glances at the window behind Kenma, the sunlight casting a gentle lemonade over the cactuses and casting comely shapes from the pane onto the loveseat by their feet. There were weird, 8-bit sounds coming from Kenma’s phone, and he shifts his head from where he was to see Kenma mashing buttons on-screen with his thumb, his top lip pressed in between his teeth in concentration.

“Good morning...Kuro...” Kenma greets, not entirely there, but Kuroo appreciates the effort anyway.

He smiles, glad to hear Kenma's voice first thing this morning.

“Hi, other half. Did you sleep okay?” 

And Kenma blushes at the sentence that felt like it was covered in strobe lights and barbed wire. He finds himself losing another life because he made him think about last night, his thumb stagnant over the on-screen buttons.

He huffs into the air, but he wasn’t sure if it was from frustration or defeat, his voice looking pained. 

“...Y-yes. Did...did you?”

“Yes~.” Kuroo simpers, knowing exactly why Kenma looked like that and he thinks it’s very cute to see him so easily embarrassed, even when it was just the two of them with each other, the only eyes watching being the clouds peeking in through the disco curtains. “Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. The _real deal.”_

As if the entirety of the trip here was not the real deal. As if Kenma had not been thinking about the _real deal_ for months now, as if Kuroo didn’t have all the power in the world over him and how the _real deal_ would go.

Kenma groans, the 8-bit music beginning to grate at his nerves. 

“...I am not looking forward to tomorrow.” He presses the volume button on his phone until the room was completely silent, save for Kuroo shuffling in the sheets to lie on his back, staring at the flecks of sunlight twinkling over the stucco ceiling. “Or today. Or next week...and the week after that.”

 _"_ Kyanma!” Kuroo says, exasperated. “You need an energy cleansing. Your striatum has been stimulated too much, did you know that? Do you wanna go out and get some healing crystals? That might help.”

Kenma’s face falls and he thinks Kuroo was being dramatic. 

“Kuro–”

His voice catches once he hears the familiar voices of his parents talking to his siblings outside the door, excited footsteps running down the hall, heavier ones trudging up the stairs. The thumping sound beats fear into him, though he knew he shouldn’t get so worked up over them.

The plan was working out perfectly.

_“We’re going to check on Kenma and Kuroo, and then come down, okay?”_

Kenma’s eyes blow wide once the realization sets in that they were coming into the little bubble that they’d quickly built up. He was scared that they were going to catch them not acting like a real couple, that they would notice how stiff and robotic Kenma looked, or how much Kuroo truly didn't know about him. 

Should he put the game away and pretend to sleep so his parents wouldn’t bother them? Should he leave it up to Kuroo? Should he get up? Maybe he _should_ get up and avoid them...

_Should he?_

“What do we do?” Kuroo’s whisper-yells have become a habit, lately, harshly pulling him back down to earth and he hits the ground too hard, disoriented and trying to think while his heart beat too loud for his logic to connect. 

“I don’t know!” Kenma’s whisper-yells have _also_ become a habit, lately, and Kuroo leans up on his elbows, trying to listen to the door, seeing if they are close. “Should we pretend to be asleep?” 

“I don’t _know!_ What if they see right through us?”

“I don’t know, either! What if–”

“Should _I_ go back to sleep?” 

_“Wait,_ what if–”

The doorknob turns and Kuroo immediately dives for Kenma’s stomach, throwing an arm over his waist and burying his head in his shirt to at least make it look believable. Kenma stares at him as if he’d done something terrible, his breath caught in his throat, and despite it feeling that way, he understands the dire situation and that this is what they needed to do. 

He quickly holds his phone with his other hand, lacing his fingers through Kuroo’s bedhead and feeling so _weird_ it makes him sick, the butterflies wiggling against his stomach while his fingertips immediately go numb in response to the stress. 

Running his fingers through Kuroo’s hair was the last thing he thought he’d be doing this morning.

“Hi, baby!” His mother pokes her head in, dark hair up in a messy bun behind her head and her sharp eyes flick between the two of them. She smiles lovingly, and Kenma fights the urge to grimace. “Get out of bed! Go do something productive with him instead of sleeping in all day, will you?”

Kenma wants to die.

“Breakfast is also ready!” His dad pushes his head in between the space his mom had the door cracked open to, seeing them together and smiling, too, making him feel on the spot and somewhat annoyed that they were acting so nice. This was weird.

Kenma blames it on Kuroo. 

“You didn’t say they were sleeping, still.”

“Kenma is awake.” She tells him, and Kenma is about to move, but Kuroo pretends to stretch unconsciously, before curling his fingers in Kenma’s shirt and cuddling his face in his chest, hearing his heart beating hard and fast and wondering if his parents could hear it, too.

Kenma grips Kuroo’s hair tightly in warning, and he feels him tense in response, stifling a grin against his chest.

“Well, come down when you’re ready. We’ll wait for you two. Your siblings are awake already, so be nice to them when you come down!”

Kenma gives a measly _okay_ that his parents probably didn’t hear, trying to act as normal as possible, and they smile again and leave, just like he predicted they would, before shutting the door behind them.

Kenma releases the breath that had been blowing up in his chest, trying to calm his heart rate down as every vessel in his body felt like it was about to explode.

That was way too close, _way_ too much for Kenma to really be able to handle.

Kenma feels Kuroo smile against his stomach and there is a tickling sensation that makes him squirm, followed by a sound like blowing raspberries, and Kenma curls in on himself at the feeling that jolts his entire body. 

“Kuro! St-stop that!”

Kenma pushes Kuroo’s shoulders through the waterfall giggles pouring past his lips, and he was still clinging onto him and blowing raspberries through his own smiles and Kenma feels the warm fuzzies in his chest again, like his blood was made of teddy-bear stuffing and he couldn’t really move.

This was _so_ weird.

Only couples do stuff like this.

“Not until you say...hm…” Kuroo stops for a moment, thinking into the ceiling, the stars glinting against his brown eyes. “Say ‘Kuroo is the best boyfriend I’ve ever had’.”

Kenma deadpans, his hands still on Kuroo’s shoulders as he looks down at him, his black hair tickling over his skin from where his shirt rode up. His eyes run over the hills of his cheeks, pink like peaches from the morning. He wanted to poke them.

“You’re the _only_ boyfriend I’ve ever had, Kuro,” Kenma says, the weight of that statement making his body ache, as they were just pretending to date, anyway. So it didn’t really count.

Kuroo makes a face and reaches up to lightly tug at Kenma’s hair, his voice flat and cordial like how petunias billow in the midsummer breeze. “Don’t ruin it, Kenma.”

“Kuro.”

And Kuroo goes back to blowing raspberries while Kenma thinks the clouds must be too low for him to be feeling this high above them, giggles replacing the silence the morning had hushed over his room.

~❀~

It is the afternoon.

Hushed magentas trickled from the moon as lavender smoke dusted over navy clouds once the sun sank, warm oranges and yellows creating the prettiest acrylic gradient Kenma had ever seen here. The trees were black silhouettes as the wind played with their leaves and swung from their branches, singing symphonies that made a sound like falling rain. 

Kenma is tranquil as he and Kuroo sit on the curb, away from most of the traffic and people heading home for the day. Kuroo spotted a vendor for red bean buns, and Kenma had found a spot for them to stay while he finished. He had insisted for Kenma to go main street with him, the largest shopping district in the area where his parents lived, just to check it out before Christmas, to see if there was anything he could get Bokuto as a souvenir. 

When they got there, it truly felt like how the holidays were supposed to. Marmalade ribbons decorated the edges of restaurants while fairy lights hung from the biggest trees down the block, glimmering like diamond necklaces when you got close enough. 

It was nice, buying gifts for his family with Kuroo for the upcoming holiday, even though he wouldn’t spend the majority of it with them. He found himself holding Kuroo’s hand more often than not (except Kenma wasn't sure about the commitment to lacing fingers together, so Kuroo urged holding his pinky instead), practically dragging him down streets and past corners to show him some of his favorite vendors from when he was little.

The smells were the same, the people were the same, the atmosphere was the same.

It felt really good to have someone to show them to, even if it was just for show. Kenma decided to trust a little more in make-believe fairy tales for now, as Kuroo smiled at him like shooting stars in the mornings, his touches making him feel like magic.

“Thank you for coming with me,” Kenma tells him, holding onto gift bags in his other hand while the sun warmed over them, bathing the street beside them in a shade of burnt orange.

It didn’t get too cold in this part of Japan during the winter until the very end of December, and while Kenma’s nose stayed tipped with rubies at the low temperature, he liked the feeling of the sun on his skin. 

Kenma thinks Kuroo looked pretty, even when he was cold.

They were pressed against each other, Kenma looking into his bun while his thoughts snaked their way up the streetlamps and draped over the stoplight above them. Kuroo’s cheeks were also dusted with a shade of rose from the cold, his lips taking on a darker pink than what Kenma had been used to.

Not that he’d been staring.

He looked almost delicate, with a fluffy, tan scarf cupping his chin, and it made Kenma’s heart flutter.

“Thank you for showing me around,” Kuroo tells him, biting the bun in his hands, the wrapper making a crackling sound that silences the crowd behind them. “I like it here, too.”

Kenma smiles, digging the toe of his shoe into the asphalt, watching a stray, red leaf skip across the pavement, ignoring him.

“I knew you would. It’s always nice. It’s not much, but…” Kenma thinks of the roads near the edge of the town that always seemed to twist into everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It felt like they were constantly changing, taking you to a new place every time you drove down them. He often dreamed of escaping down them, letting them take him in their inviting arms and drop him somewhere else away from home. The thought kept him balanced, until he was able to move out. “It’s really nice, here.”

“And there are no thunderstorms,” Kuroo says, grinning once Kenma breathed out a small giggle.

“Not all the time. Definitely less than back home.” Kenma wants to keep talking, but finds it a bit difficult to keep the conversation going once he thinks about how they look, sitting together like this. He’s struggling. “Um...I never asked before, but...how come you don’t like storms so much?”

Kuroo looks at the sky, a transparent golden sheen taking up the clouds and glinting off of the stoplights, the leaves scampering down the street as cars run past them. Kenma is staring, Kuroo taking on all of the pretty colors of the sky. He thinks, if he were to reach out to him, he’d feel the warmth of novas over his fingertips.

“They’re just loud.” Kuroo shrugs, gently squeezing his bun and watching the bean paste peek out from it, his scarf scratching at his neck. “When I was a kid, they scared me. Ever since, I hate them.”

Kenma nods. “I get it.”

It was easy to not like things that caused you to be uncomfortable. He almost understood that too well.

Even now, as Kuroo is eating and he’s listening to the wind and the asphalt shouting beneath car tires, he feels uncomfortable. Maybe it was the fact that Kuroo had been so welcoming to him, sending his head to space more times than he was okay with, with such little effort, when he was trying to keep him out. Maybe it was the fact that he was finding it easy to be with him, craving his attention, or the next time he’d be able to see him, when he'd spent so much time putting up electric fences and barbed wire around him. 

There were many things about it that were _supposed_ to make Kenma uncomfortable, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind it. 

“–and...Kenma? Are you listening?” 

Kenma blinks. “Yes.”

Kuroo makes a face. “Then what did I say?”

Kenma takes a breath and looks at the street, as if going to say something, before shaking his head once.

“I was not listening.” 

“Just when I was talking about how good of a boyfriend you were, too.” Kuroo smiles, making Kenma shove his shoulder, trying not to think so much about what he said. 

“Oh, well, now I’m definitely interested. Tell me more.”

“I was saying that I am glad you turned out to be cool. And not scary.” Kuroo says, turning his foot inward and tapping the asphalt with the toe of his shoe, just as Kenma did. He focuses on the soft sound. “I’m happy to spend the holidays with you. I like you just as much as I thought I would. Maybe more.”

_Whatever that means._

Kenma hums in agreement, glad to have _someone_ by his side that was not Hinata for the holidays. He got lucky that it was somebody like Kuroo, an added bonus in how they were complete opposites of each other, in how he was drawn to him.

It made him want to feel better.

“I am, too. Thank you for coming along.”

Kuroo smiles, and while Kenma’s butterflies take off in search of more flowers to settle upon, he thinks he liked Kuroo a lot more than he thought he would, himself.

A _lot_ more.

~❀~

“Hey, Ken.”

The two of them had gotten home a little earlier than the rest of the family, also out to the city and making holiday preparations and doing last-minute shopping, the promise of making dinner together after nightfall still heavy on his back. He hangs his coat up on the rack beside the hooks for their keys, humming in response to Kuroo, looking at the trickle of the remaining goldenrods that this time of the day brought.

He always liked watching the stars on this roof in particular at night.

He needed to go outside soon.

“I got you something.”

Kenma stops, and he turns over his shoulder to look at him, Kuroo's black hair falling into his face as he stared down at something in his hands. Kuroo brings it up, his finger hooked through a keychain, and there is a silver charm beside a purple crystal that was shimmering as the sunlight from the window pierced through it.

It’s pretty.

“I got it when you were waiting in line for lunch. How convenient that we were talking about trees just last night, and then I found this, right? It’s so weird!” Kuroo says, excitedly, as he walks up to Kenma, the charm and crystal swinging from his finger. “It’s a weeping willow charm and an amethyst. The lady said this crystal will help you feel better.”

“I don’t need to feel better.” Kenma pouts, wondering if he really gave off a pessimistic energy that was bad enough for Kuroo to be concerned.

Kuroo lightly tugs on Kenma’s hair with a grin, and he feels indifferent. “You sound like someone who needs an amethyst.” 

Kenma huffs, and watches as Kuroo takes his hand in his own, pressing the keychain to his palm to make sure he holds onto it. 

“It’s not much and...I know it’s probably overstepping to be giving you something before Christmas, but…” Kuroo’s voice is not as full as the tide it reminded him so much of, and Kenma sees that he’s nervous, smiling almost coyly and looking at the floor. 

Kuroo Tetsurou? Anxious? 

Hm.

“I just wanted you to have it now." He shrugs. "That’s all.”

Kenma sighs lightly through his nose, not used to someone being this nice to him on purpose. He looks at the charm, and thinks the detailed engraving is beautiful, thinks the crystal fits right in next to it, thinks the sunlight looked even prettier poured over something Kuroo took the time to think about for him.

This was _his_. 

Kenma turns back around and takes his keys off of the hook, trying his best to unclasp it with shaking fingers, his heart thumping in his throat. Kuroo is quiet, and Kenma silently slides it into the ring, hearing it lightly clank against the rest of his keys, like silver wind chimes.

“Is that weird? I hope it’s not weird.” Kuroo says, and Kenma tries to figure out a way to say more than thank you, because he really did like it and thinks that it would settle his worries about not seeing Kuroo again after the holidays.

It reminded him of last night, and that was more than enough.

He finds himself in front of Kuroo, catching his eyes with his own. Kenma quickly gets on his tiptoes and kisses his cheek, noticing the laceleaf wash that floods over his skin and it makes him feel a little taller to know he made Kuroo just as nervous sometimes, too.

“Thank you, Kuro. I really like it. I’ll be sure not to lose it.” Kenma gives him a small smile, genuine, and while the house is silent around them, listening to everything that they have yet to say to each other while they spoke of nothing at all, he adds this to the list of the many things he owes to Kuroo.

And he knew he’d be the type to never expect anything back, but still.

He was going to make it up to him. 

One day.

“Um…” Kenma breaks eye contact with Kuroo for a moment, feeling his cheeks heat up while he stands there, the ground revolving and unstable and Kenma thinks he would fall over if he moved, staring into the amethyst and feeling his heart pick up. “I, uh...I used to watch the stars on the roof when I was younger, with Shouyou and our... _f_ _riend,_ Lev...before he moved away. It’s almost night time. Do you—”

“Yes. Let’s go.” Kuroo beams at him like morning dusk, warming his chest after feeling cold for a moment, and he grabs his hand, unlocking the door. 

Kenma shuts it behind them, and they race up the stairs at the side of the house, breathing out giggles with every step towards the moon, childlike adrenaline sprinting alongside them. Kenma scrambles to the highest point of his roof, letting his feet sit flat against the shingles, while Kuroo sits criss cross-applesauce beside him.

They are set in a comfortable silence, and while Kenma is stagnant and watching the sun slowly settle somewhere else for the night, he can’t help but feel a slight itch in his bones. He thinks that maybe, this was a bad idea after all, despite the way Kuroo was making him feel, despite the way he had an urge to make sure Kuroo was having a good time, though he swore he couldn’t care less if you were to ask him a week ago.

Kuroo hadn’t seemed excited, either, and despite this being one of Kenma’s favorite things to do as a kid, maybe it didn’t sit so well with Kuroo.

And of course, he was allowed to not be smiling all the time.

It was just weird. Kenma wanted to ask what he was thinking about.

Kuroo speaks up as soon as Kenma parts his lips to talk, as if he had a script on his skin and Kuroo found it interesting to read. 

“...You said you hung out here with Hinata and...Lev, right?”

Kenma’s heart plummets into a cold and inky sentiment that he’d been trying to get rid of at the mention of his name. He’s taken back to middle school, and there is a nostalgia that sits heavy in the pit of his stomach and the old fissures on his heart ache anew when he’s reminded of him.

His name left a sour taste in his mouth.

“Y-yeah.” He says, his body feeling hollow. He hated the feeling just as much now, as he did back then. “We were very good friends. He moved away for high school, without telling me or Shouyou anything.” Kenma shrugs, the twilight bleeding violet onto his eyelids while the wind plays with Kuroo’s hair, looking at his feet. “We never talked again after that.”

“Why not?”

Kenma shrugs again. 

“We were on good terms. Maybe he thought it wasn’t important. That I wasn’t.” Kenma shakes his head absentmindedly, shrugging again. “I think...he wanted to start over for high school. A clean slate regarding who he hung out with.”

He feels himself beginning to build up walls over himself again, the fear that Kuroo would do the same thing tugging at the strands of his conscience. He never let anyone else in after that, because he knew they’d move on, just as Lev did. He was glad Hinata stuck, but even then, he still often thought about what would happen once they needed to take different roads one day.

Kenma hated it. 

“I’m sure that wasn’t true, Ken. When you’re that age, you kind of do things that you regret later. For him, that might have been one of them.” Kuroo leans back on his hands, the shingles slightly indenting his palms as he lets the murmur of twilight run over his cheeks. 

He looked beautiful. 

Kenma sometimes believed Kuroo had fireflies beneath his skin, that were constantly glowing, constantly vibrant. They lit when he smiled, shimmered when he slept next to him, buzzed when he was thinking. They blared especially when it was dark like this, when he felt safer beneath the cover of the stars, when Kuroo was flickering with opportunity to do something new with him the second he got the chance to.

His heart is on fire.

“I just...didn’t want to waste time on someone who is going to leave.” Kenma hugs himself, watches his thoughts spill out on the roof and drip off the rafters, detesting the feeling of exposure as he is reminded of how he felt back then, how he felt for Lev and how everything was so new and raw, only for it to grow stale so quickly, to be crushed under the heavy boot of being left in the dark. 

He sighs. “I know it’s a bad habit, so...um...since then, I’ve been, like...just trying to figure out h-how to get over it. How to be okay with people leaving if they need to. Opening my heart more, you know?” 

Kenma was terrible with words and he was sure he just proved it to Kuroo on his roof. How embarrassing.

“I get it.” Kuroo tilts his head as a soft grey overtakes the horizon, the sky now drenched in a gentle shade of indigo while the stars hang low, reaching their idle hands past the stratosphere for them to hold. “How to love the people around you while you still have them.”

“Yeah.” Kenma nods, feeling the air around them run cold as it snakes through his black hoodie. “Like that.”

“Do you think you’re doing better?” 

Kenma blinks, images of dark hair and a starlight grin whisking through his head, the ghost of adrenaline smoking through his veins at the memory of the diner and the roadtrip up here. 

“Yeah.” He glances at Kuroo, who was listening attentively, a small smile on his face. The world is quiet. “I think so.” 

“The thing about life is, other half…” Kuroo scoots closer to Kenma and throws an arm around his shoulders, the air feeling a lot thinner than it did before. Kenma is reminded of home and the rain. “People change. The past is in the past, but! Good memories don’t ever leave, do they?” 

Kenma leans on Kuroo’s shoulder, raising his eyebrows in agreement, his heart thumping and kindling the embers in his chest to glow hotter. “I guess not.”

Things like this used to repulse Kenma. 

Holding hands, hugging, kissing, all of that. He hated when it came up in movies and had this uncomfortable feeling that wriggled beneath his skin when he’d glance at couples in the hallways of his high school. He thinks that maybe it was the fear of the unknown again, creeping its way into his head and making him fear doing new things like that with someone, knowing it could go terribly wrong at any moment, and he didn’t want to suffer the humiliation.

But the more he got to know Kuroo, the more he felt like risks were good to take, as long as you had the right person to take them _with_.

He felt Kuroo was the right person for many things, like going on fake dates to diners and kissing his forehead before going home. He felt Kuroo was right for escaping parties, just to hang out on the roof together as the night slowed. He felt Kuroo was right for traveling up here with, and pulling casual conversations with his parents to help ease the stress of lying to them. He felt Kuroo was right for holding hands with as they got lost in Kenma’s most favorite memories from his time in this part of town. He felt Kuroo was right for watching the stars at night, on the roof of his safe haven, when the moon was silent and the clouds were invisible, replacing the ghosts of his old friendships with something more whole, something more integral.

It was strange, but it feels like he’s known Kuroo his whole life, like he belonged up here, along with Lev and Hinata back in middle school.

And as he pointed excitedly at constellations once navies replaced the bister of the sky, his eyes glowing as if Cyngi and Sirius had settled themselves behind them instead, he thought Kuroo might have been the perfect person for wasting time on, too.


	8. bang!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a cheesy filler 
> 
> enjoy!

It’s nighttime.

Kenma’s siblings were busy deciding on where to go out to explore the nightlife before Thanksgiving tomorrow, while his parents helped his aunt and uncle at their own house. Kuroo and Kenma would have the entire area to themselves once they left, but Kenma was already kind of tired and Kuroo had been excited to catch up on the latest episode of his favorite cartoon tonight.

Staying home was the best option for them. Besides, Kenma never minded keeping to himself in his old home while he still could.

“You know, you still didn’t tell me what kind of tree you were,” Kenma says, leaning against the counter while a pie finishes baking in the oven in front of them, keeping up his promise to Kuroo at paying for his services with some form of food.

He was very good at baking sweets, and he hoped Kuroo felt the same (but if you asked if he cared, he would tell you no). It was a butterscotch cinnamon pie from one of his favorite video games, that unfortunately, he lost the disc to before moving away for university. And despite feeling like an enormous dweeb when Kuroo asked about it and got him going off on a tangent, he hoped Kuroo would like the taste of it, anyway.

Kuroo found Kenma’s extensive interest in video games very cute.

He told him that he wanted to play it with him one day, and Kenma decided that it wasn’t a difficult request at all.

“I didn’t?” Kuroo asks from beside him, leaning against the countertop beside the banana rack and facing the opposite way, flicking his thumb in different directions over the screen of his phone.

Kenma glances at the screen as subtly as possible, hating nosey people himself, but not doing much to fight the urge to be the same way. Kuroo is playing Pacman.

“You’d be..." Kenma looks at the pie in the oven, finding his speculation in the ridges of the golden crust. "A pine.”

“A pine?” Kenma could practically see Kuroo’s eyebrow raise as his candied voice rings over a chuckle. “Like, a pine tree?”

Kenma smiles and nods, finding it kind of silly himself. “Yes. Or an oak. With a big treehouse in it.”

“Well, now, I’m curious.” Kuroo locks his phone, turning to face Kenma from where he was leaning on the counter. Kenma swallows, trying not to get so nervous as Kuroo's eyes burn holes in his skin. “Why a treehouse?”

Kenma shrugs in dismissal, curling his fingers into his black hoodie as he tries to think under Kuroo's spotlights. “Dunno. It just... _feels like you.”_ He repeats from when Kuroo first entered his room a few days ago, and Kuroo groans while lightly pushing his shoulder.

“You’re _killing_ me, Ken–”

“Hey, Kenma!”

Kenma’s smile immediately drops when he sees his brother walk into the kitchen through the open doorframe, holding onto a white sweater that looked an _awful lot_ like the one Kenma brought for the dinner tomorrow. There was a dark stain on the front of it, almost transparent as if he’d tried to wash it out. Poorly, but he saw the effort.

Kenma's eyebrows come together, not really expecting the shock of his brother holding onto his sweater to make him feel so upset, already feeling irritation boiling in his bloodstream as he stares at the stain.

That was his favorite sweater _._

“Hey, loser. I, um…” Kuroo watches as Kenma’s brother meekly runs a hand through his dark hair, holding up the sweater in his other hand while strands fall into his face, as if trying to cover him up from Kenma’s anger, kind of like Kenma does. “I was going to borrow this for tonight, and wash it before tomorrow. But, uh…you know.”

Kenma blinks, feeling annoyance bubble up in the bit of his stomach and his fingers quake with the urge to hit him. He goes over to him and tries his best to not yell at him, tries his best to not shove him to the ground, thinking that _maybe_ that was overreacting, taking the sweater and looking at the stain.

“What the hell did you spill on it?” Kenma asks, feeling his neck begin to ache with the inconvenience. 

“Um...wine.” 

Kenma’s eyes blow wide as he spreads the sweater out in his hands, looking at the dark stain at the collar in the light of the kitchen, flooding over the chest of it. This sweater was one of those sewn-in ones, so he couldn’t even hide it by flipping it inside out. He was definitely upset with him, but there was the fact of Kuroo being in the same room and he didn’t want to give off the wrong impression. He thinks that’s maybe why Kaiyo waited until they were together, so he'd have less repercussion from him.

Although, this was something very good to be pissed off at.

Kenma swallows, and with shaking hands, he balls up the sweater and accepts it now that he has to most likely throw it out, or reuse it in some other way, rather than later when there was a chance to get more upset by it. There was no way he’d be able to wear it tomorrow, anyway. 

“It’s...fine.” Kenma’s voice is low and it was _not_ fine, but he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it in front of Kuroo. “Thanks for telling me... _after the fucking fact.”_

“I knew you’d be cool, little brother.” His brother smiles and there are soft dimples pressing their fingertips into his cheeks, seemingly ignoring Kenma’s change of tone, before he turns around quickly. “See you! I’m heading out with Himari!”

Kenma sighs heavily and sets the sweater on the counter in a bundle, and goes back to his spot in the corner, leaning against the ledge and watching the oven, hearing the front door close behind his siblings. Kuroo felt strange, caught up in the jello-cup awkward that they've been straying away from since they first met, knowing that Kenma was agitated as a very uncomfortable silence replaced their conversation just a little while ago. 

The air was heavy. 

Kenma presses the back of his thumb to his bottom lip, tapping it against his front teeth and trying his best to figure out a way to go salvage that sweater, how to get a stain like that out of the white material. 

Kuroo, on the other hand, had a knack for diffusing situations like this from all his practice with his roommate and his emo-modes. He glances up at the sweater, then to the sofa in the living room, then to the banana rack, then to the oven. 

He gets an idea.

“Kenma~.” Kuroo reaches over and plucks a banana from the bunch, very overripe, with bruises all over it. 

Kenma looks at him, completely dejected and trying to figure out what he was going to do to try and save that sweater. It was _so soft,_ too.

What a terrible day.

Kuroo holds the banana out to him until Kenma takes it from him, locking his phone and setting it beside his sweater. He stands up straight, looming over Kenma a bit more than usual, before he speaks, his lips pouted and eyebrows pinched together, his voice booming and climactic. 

“Commander, there have been reports of a suspect wandering the premises…” Kuroo backs away from him with his fingers pressed to his ear, as if speaking into a piece, another brown banana in his own hand. He makes it to the doorframe, keeping his gaze on Kenma, trying to read him and hoping that this would work. “Yes, ma'am. I _have_ seen someone, recently.”

Kenma makes a face, watching Kuroo back up into the living room until they couldn’t see each other anymore past the door frame, feeling the vexation begin to dissipate. 

“Blonde hair tied back, wearing a black outfit. Oh... _that’s_ our guy, you say? I hope he doesn’t run, I’ve just spotted him a few seconds ago!”

And Kenma sighs heavily, a smile threatening to smash through the stones in his face, thinking this is absolutely ridiculous, that they were supposed to be adults, with no time to play childish games like this in the middle of his kitchen.

But he would be _damned_ if he let himself lose.

Kenma dashes for the hallway that led to the stairway, ducking beside the wall, his heart pounding in anticipation, trying to listen out for Kuroo. He calms his breathing, takes everything he’s learned from his favorite shooter games, knowing he’d need it for something as important as this.

It’s quiet.

Kenma peeks over, his heart beating as if he really would die had Kuroo caught him, definitely not expecting the thrill of playing a game like this with him. He sees nothing, yet. 

Pressing himself to the wall, he moves slowly, tiptoeing over to the living room sofas. He aims his banana quickly at the open space, seeing nothing but an empty dining table, the china closet full and the light from the oven still shining within the corner of the kitchen. 

He actually felt nervous. This was strange.

He sees Kuroo’s face in the reflection of the china closet, peeking over the corner right behind him. He bolts to the hallway again, hiding behind the wall. He tried to suppress his giggles, thinking about how to take Kuroo down as efficiently as possible.

“Come out, villain! You’re surrounded!” Kuroo calls for him, Kenma seeing him sitting behind one of the sofas, his banana in both hands and ready to shoot him.

He peeks out again, and Kuroo immediately comes out of cover, aiming at him. 

“Bang, bang!”

Kenma bolts into the kitchen, making his way behind the island in front of the sink, the light of the oven warming over his feet. Kuroo hears his footsteps, and suddenly, as he is trying to figure out where to go to get to him, there’s a loud noise, as if Kenma had run into something.

“Kenma?” Kuroo calls for him, his heart falling once he didn’t get a response from the kitchen. “Are you okay?”

He starts to feel terrible - Kenma must have fallen and it was definitely his fault for wanting to play this stupid game. Kuroo stands up, his heart beating in his chest as he calls out for Kenma again.

He moves to the kitchen, his heart pounding in emergency and expecting to see Kenma bleeding or something very _bad,_ and his conscience was screaming at him for making him get hurt in his own house. He sees Kenma there, on his knees, holding his stomach with his free hand, his head hanging, breathing hard.

He looked like he was in pain. 

“Kenma? Are you okay?” Kuroo kneels down to his level to help him, placing a hand on his shoulder to pull him up, trying to look at his face to make sure he wasn’t actually bleeding. “Do you need–”

There is a banana pressed to the middle of his chest and Kenma is very close to his face, and before he gets a chance to realize what’s going on, Kenma’s voice is soft, a small, triumphant smile on his face as Kuroo stares back into hooded, wild eyes. 

_“Bang.”_

Kenma finds Kuroo’s expression kind of funny, and while his heart beats against his chest at how close they were, falling into Kuroo’s slow orbit again, there is that warm fuzzy feeling in his stomach as Kuroo's lips melt into one of those smiles that make him dream of the moon.

“You jerk! I thought you died.” Kuroo tells him through a giggle, and Kenma reaches up to set the banana on the countertop so it didn’t get smushed onto the tile.

“I didn't wanna lose,” Kenma says, looking back at Kuroo, his smile still on his face, but there was something behind his eyes that was too hard to read.

Kenma could hardly breathe once he sees Kuroo look at his mouth, brown eyes flickering.

His smile slowly falls, and Kuroo feels like he’s getting closer to him. He doesn't know if he's just thinking he is because he wanted him to, or if he truly was closing the distance. And there are many things he wants to say, wants to ask or talk about or yell to the sky when nobody is around, but they’re caught in his throat. His thoughts hit a traffic jam, and the faint hint of Kuroo’s cologne sat on his shoulders, coaxing. 

He is close. There was something going on, but Kuroo couldn’t really put his finger on it. 

Kenma's chest feels too small for his body and he glances at Kuroo's lips, tilting his head slightly.

He feels like shutting the gap. 

The oven beeps and it sounds like a blaring high school fire alarm to Kenma, sending him into overdrive as his heart feels like it’s going to spill out of his mouth, scrambling away from Kuroo and standing up to his feet, as if he’d been caught doing something illegal. 

It definitely felt like it.

“I-It’s done. I’ll, um...go and take it out.” Kenma rambles to his socks on the way to the oven, almost forgetting the oven mitts as the oven beeps for him again, calling attention to the fact that he almost kissed Kuroo in the middle of his kitchen.

What the hell.

Kuroo couldn’t slow his heart down after that, not when Kenma’s parents and siblings came home, not when he ate dinner with them, not when he took a shower, not when they went to bed after that, as his thoughts were persistent and made him feel way too much about Kenma, more than he felt he was okay with.

Kenma kept to himself at the edge of the bed, and struggled to fall asleep with the moon this time, trying to forget about the memory that had been burning hot in his head since it happened. 

He was not successful.


	9. home

The dinner was not bad at all.

Because Kenma had gone down to the dining room with Kuroo, his extended family just kind of assumed who he was and didn’t bother to ask when they got there. Kuroo introduced himself anyway, and while receiving smiles and appreciative looks from his family at how polite he was, Kenma couldn’t help but feel misplaced.

It was just weird to remember this was all for show, despite basking in the normalcy that put his nerves at ease for the past week.

The more Kuroo pulled him along, held his hand and ran down those same roads that he was so afraid of, getting lost no matter how many times he’s been down them _with_ him, he couldn’t help but look forward to the adventure. He was constantly anticipating the next adventure, to feeling like fireplaces despite the cold outside.

He didn’t mind getting lost.

And that was the most troubling part.

“–long have you two been together? I don’t think we’ve asked, yet.” Kenma’s eyes blow wide and the words are stuck in his throat as the question sinks into his head, his cheeks blazing as his mom’s question feels too heavy to be asked in front of _everyone here._

The only people that seemed interested were the adults, but still. This is embarrassing. 

“Um...five months since the beginning of, um...o-of this month.” Kenma feels flimsy, the lie struggling to come out, his head drawing a blank at all the things he and Kuroo had talked about to make this go smoother.

He was always _so_ bad at it. It was annoying.

“And how’d you meet?” His aunt leans forward a bit, her dark eyebrows raised in curiosity and Kenma feels like neon strobe lights again under her gaze, the many conversations from his family loud and drowning out their own, but he still felt trapped and like they’d been screaming into the sky for the whole city to hear.

Kenma reaches down for his glass of water, watching the condensation weep down the sides, and subtly tugs at Kuroo’s pants with his free hand, telling him to answer for him. He takes a sip of the water, the glass freezing against his fingertips.

Kuroo told them that terrible coffee shop lie, smiling and bright-eyed as if it were true, and despite Kenma’s heart beating in apprehension, he is relieved when they nod and smile. They fell into smaller conversations that carried less weight than the last, Kuroo telling them stories of his favorite memories together at carnivals and of waking up within the early mornings with him. 

As far as Kenma knew, he’s never been to a carnival with Kuroo, nor have they spent a single early morning together before coming here, but as long as his parents believed it, then there was no harm in going along with it. Kuroo was good at bouncing off of Kenma’s half-assed lies, making it slightly less obvious that he had no idea what he was doing.

But it was okay.

With the way he found himself smiling with his parents again, actually enjoying time with all of his family on one of the most dreaded times of the year for him, it felt like they’d really known each other for five months, rather than barely five weeks.

It just felt effortless.

Kenma still wasn’t sure how he felt about how easy it was to pretend to be in love with Kuroo, either.

~❀~

They’d cleaned up after themselves, and the sun was beginning to sink again, filling Kenma’s chest with dusk despite the incoming twilight.

They were getting ready to leave along with the rest of them — his parents opting to stay home, while his siblings wanted to go explore the festivals in the red light district a ways from here. Kenma had insisted on taking Kuroo to the labor festival that was near main street, and he’d agreed to go with him before he even finished his sentence, so it was a lot easier to plan than he’d thought.

“Hey. Don’t freak out, but...your parents are still looking at us,” Kuroo says lowly, looking down at Kenma and fixing the collar of his coat. 

His collar did not need fixing, but he thought it looked good to anyone who happened to look in their direction. It was good to still pretend while there were eyes around. Kenma didn't mind.

His family was slowly filtering out of the house to go their separate ways for the night, Kuroo and Kenma staying behind until everyone else left. 

A safety precaution, of sorts.

“Really? Like, staring?” Kenma’s eyes widen and does not dare look over his shoulder to his parents, but he quickly feels embarrassment bubble up in the pit of his stomach regardless.

The wind rakes through his hair and makes it flutter in his eyes, a few strands caught in his dark lashes that swept like waves over shorelines.

Kuroo thinks they were pretty.

“No, not staring. But glances.” Kuroo flicks his eyes back towards the house as Kenma’s siblings caught up to his parents to speak to them, quickly avoiding eye contact with his father as he glances up at them again. “Don’t freak out.”

“I am gonna freak out.”

_“Kenma.”_

“Should we do something?” Kenma looks straight ahead, into Kuroo’s chest, bringing the back of his thumb to his bottom lip in nervousness, trying to look subtle as he thinks into the fabric of Kuroo's black shirt. 

Kuroo shakes his head, black feathers falling over his eye. He reaches out to Kenma’s hair and lightly tugs on it between his thumb and forefinger. Kenma’s learned that he usually does it when he is bored or wants to change the subject, or when he is trying to make him feel better. A simple gesture, but it meant more than everything to Kenma to know he was able to calm him down, just by that.

It makes him want to go to the festival even faster.

“Dunno.” He shrugs, glancing at them again. “They’re talking to your siblings. Definitely distracted.”

Kenma swallows and looks to the ground, a thought coming to mind that makes his heart beat a little too quickly than what he was okay with. He looks into the grass, the front lawn swept with a powdered indigo that makes it look like they were in the middle of the sea, rather in the middle of the front lawn.

And in the way Kuroo makes Kenma feel intimidated, as if sharks were circling his feet and the current was impending in the distance, he would have believed it.

“Um, Kuro…”

Kuroo tilts his head and waits for him. Kenma takes a breath, finding it very hard to communicate what he was feeling, especially when it came to Kuroo. There were many things he wanted to say to him, but most of his thoughts were jumbled and stuck in his head, like they usually were.

He had a hard time expressing things, and Kuroo knew that, yet he was still being patient with him and waiting for him to figure it out.

Kenma lets his head hang a bit, his hair falling into his face, still warm with Kuroo’s touch, before he quickly steps forward.

Kuroo blinks, and finds Kenma close to him, hugging him tightly, his ear pressed against his chest. Kuroo was slightly embarrassed that Kenma could hear how fast his heart was beating, like a racing Supersport against the timelessness of the nighttime as he hugged him.

“Thank you,” Kenma says, his voice small and missable had Kuroo not stayed quiet to hear it. “This was the main thing I was worried about, and...it went really well.” Kenma grins and looks up at him, his chin set on his chest. "So thanks."

Kuroo finds him endearing.

He snakes his arms around his shoulders, nearly engulfing Kenma in his jacket, the wind brittle and cold as it cools over his warm cheeks. Kuroo is grateful that it was too dark to see the laceleaf that had adorned his cheeks.

He presses his lips to Kenma’s forehead, like he did at the diner, just in case his parents were watching (and to be annoying, as always), making him hide his face back in his chest. Kuroo smiles and feels his heart soar above the moon at the close contact, never really doing this with anyone else. They were friends, and for most friends it was normal, Hinata being just as affectionate to him back at home, even though he acted like he didn’t like it.

But still.

Kuroo felt like Kenma belonged here, that he was supposed to be hugging him under the moon's radiance, that he was _supposed_ to be a part of him that did things together, like go to main street and eat red bean buns or sit in with his family at a holiday dinner.

“You’re welcome, other half. I think we make a pretty good team.” 

"Yeah." Kenma tries to suppress another grin that was threatening to slip through him. "I think so, too."

The festival was wonderful, and as Kenma was finding more things that reminded him of home, within the fairy lights and paper lanterns that hung from ceilings, he couldn’t help but think of Kuroo alongside it.


	10. silver

Rain.

Kuroo was a lot like spring rain.

He was warm and enveloping and constant but it was pleasant in a way that made Kenma want to keep going. He smiled like puddles in the afternoon, his laugh reminding him of double rainbows after April showers, while his touch was the soft sunlight filtering through grey clouds after a storm. Kenma remembers standing in the rain once, just to feel what it was like. He liked it, finding comfort in the warm sighs of the rain as it cried over his skin, soaking into his clothes. He found it hard to believe that people didn't like standing out in the rain.

Kuroo felt just as soothing to him, keeping him grounded in situations that were supposed to be scary. 

And despite Kuroo hating storms, Kenma thought he was more involved than he realized.

He wanted to keep exploring him, to keep wandering within him until he found another rose with pieces of Kuroo’s personality wound between its petals, or a stray dandelion to wish upon and blow out, thinking of him. 

And he would wish for many things, the desire to stay in their little utopia for as long as they could sitting at the top of the list, while warm rain kisses his skin.

It was Christmas morning, and despite it being cold outside, Kenma felt that same warmth in his chest, getting used to it for the past week and a half.

Things have been getting easier for him. It was a lot less difficult to be around Kuroo, craving the next time he’d be able to spend time with him or thinking of the next place to take him, to leave their laughter splattered on the walls for the next time he came back down here. 

It was a lot easier to pretend, and Kenma was beginning to think that might not be such a good thing anymore, either.

“You’re thinking.” Kuroo comments, looking up at the back of Kenma’s PSP from where he was resting his stomach.

Kenma tries to ignore how his arms were rung around the small of his back, and how his nose was sifted with a delicate pink from waking up, or how his black hair got messier with each day that passed. He remembers wanting to see how Kuroo looked in the morning, and as he is draped in white light from the high sun, surrounding him in a beautiful halo that he would only ever dream of, he thinks he is prettiest after just waking up.

There were many sides to Kuroo. Kenma liked this one especially.

He wonders if Kuroo could feel the butterflies fluttering under his chin.

“I am.” And Kenma’s lucky that Kuroo wasn’t near his chest after being caught, watching his character die for the second time on the gaming screen, distracted. “About...today. What are we gonna do today?”

“Well...Christmas is a couple’s thing, right?” Kuroo turns his head, his ear pressed against the fabric of Kenma’s black hoodie as he looks out of the window.

The oak tree sways and the clouds wave at him against a sky of aquas. The stars have vanished.

“Yes,” Kenma says, his heart jumping.

“Let’s go to a new place. I’m sure there are places around that you haven’t taken me to, yet.”

And there _were_ , about a million and two areas that Kenma would love to take Kuroo to, just for him to see and instill a sense of pride in him to see he liked them almost as much as _he_ used to. Kenma often felt like there weren’t enough days in the week for them to be here together.

He pushes the thought away.

“I could take you to another red light district. It’s a little far, though. We would need to take the train.” 

Kenma feels Kuroo smile, and while he’s waiting for the loading screen, he can’t help but reach out to him, threading his fingers through his black hair, the sun kissing the tips and dying them silver. Kenma watches the fireflies dance beneath his skin as he shuts his eyes, falling peaceful for a moment.

“Yes, please. And we could eat Christmas cake!” Kuroo suddenly looks up at Kenma again, an exciting tinge in his eyes. 

“Yeah.” Kenma’s mouth twitches in a soft smile, and Kuroo looks at his lips, noticing the pretty coral stain on them in the morning. “I’ll buy us dinner.”

“Oh, wait, wait. I forgot."

Kenma sways with the mattress as Kuroo gets out of bed, his shirt wrinkled and he was missing a fuzzy sock from Kenma's drawer, but he didn’t mention it. Kuroo goes to his suitcase, and pulls out a plastic CD holder, a pricing sticker on the front of it.

Kenma stares at it, knowing the familiar price sticker from when he used to go to the video game store. 

“It is Christmas, and I wanted to give you a real gift before I forgot,” Kuroo says, and Kenma thinks back to his keys.

“What?”

“Remember when I went with your brother, and you went with your sister?” Kuroo holds the plastic case out to Kenma, who takes it, his amber eyes scanning over the familiar pixelated font that he used to love so much as a child once he splits the case open. “We searched _everywhere_ for an old video game store. And finally found one about five stations away from Main Street.”

Kenma can’t contain his excitement, pulling the cd out while listening to Kuroo, feeling its smooth surface, fingertips itching to hold his console controller while the game showed up on his screen for the first time in a while.

“I was um...kind of scared to get you a gift on Christmas, considering it’s more of a couple’s thing and all…” Kuroo is sheepish as he stands there, his hand on the back of his neck as Kenma blinks at him. “I didn’t know if you’d be okay with it. But I know how much you missed playing Undertale. And we might as well keep acting like we’re dating, so...I just figured—”

“I am very happy with it, Kuro.” Kenma smiles at him, then back to the cd, lost in his reeling imagination at being able to play this again after so long. “Thank you, love.”

Kuroo tries very, _very_ hard to ignore Kenma’s slip, watching him as he gets out of bed and makes his way to the television, slotting the cd inside of his empty console to keep for later. His heart thrums and he feels like he’s floating once Kenma grins at him again.

And while they get ready to go out, Kenma, on the other hand, almost misses how his old bed felt with someone new in it, his own present for Kuroo sitting idly in his suitcase, humming against its velvet box.

~❀~

Once night fell, the town was bright.

Fairy lights wrapped around the reaching arms of the trees that lined the sidewalk of the streets, dressing them up in golds and pearls that reminded Kenma a lot of his mother’s necklaces she would wear when he was a child, snaking over building frames and lining planter boxes for Christmas flowers. The sky was dark and clear, the stars seeking refuge in the shrubs and bushes instead, twinkling before them as they passed. Green and vermillion streamers shimmered like gems as they draped from ceilings, while mistletoe hung over the entrances of the clubs they walked by, dubious as they danced in the December wind.

Kenma most definitely avoided every possible instance of being caught underneath one of them with Kuroo, as if his life depended on it, not wanting to deal with the stress that situation would bring.

Apart from that, he quite literally felt like he was in a fairy tale, despite the absence of snow, and he thinks he could get used to being down here when everything he saw made his heart soar to the moon.

He then remembers he’d brought Kuroo’s gift with him, and his heart sinks at the thought, bringing the back of his thumb to his bottom lip as nerves swept over his skin again.

“Have you tried this before?” Kuroo asks, kicking one leg back and forth from where he was sat on his stool across from Kenma, using his fork to cut through the edge of the Christmas cake in between them, the small snowman figurine in the corner of the table smiling back at them while Kenma’s fork sits on the napkin still. 

“No,” Kenma says, shaking his head and looking at Kuroo. His nose was still pink, even inside. “It doesn’t seem like it would taste good.” 

Kuroo brings up his fork, the cake resting on it and taking on the beautiful shades of emerald and tourmaline from the outside within the whipped cream. Kenma looks at it, then to Kuroo, his heart dropping and his stomach yelling for him not to eat it, that if he did, their facade would look too much like the real thing. 

He swallows, shutting his eyes and biting over the fork anyway, his cheeks taking on a tinge of rose almost as abundant as the strawberries had been.

He likes it.

“It’s good.” He covers his mouth with his hand while he chews, and Kuroo smiles in return, looking down at the cake again. 

“I know!” 

Kenma tries to ignore how much it felt like they were truly together. The smell of hot chocolate tethers him to the ground while Kuroo cuts half of the cake with his fork, pushing it over to Kenma’s side of the plate. The plate has red ornaments lining the sides and the strawberries are round and pretty as they sit between the layers. 

He feels like it wasn’t really made for eating. 

He picks up his fork and begins to eat his half, noticing there were extra strawberries from the top of Kuroo’s side near his own. He resists the urge to smile, popping one into his mouth, the sour sugar blossoming over his tongue.

“You were thinking a little while ago,” Kuroo says, not looking at Kenma. And he was glad he didn’t, because he was scared of Kuroo picking up another thing that he did and throwing it back in his face unintentionally, that he was _that_ easy to read.

“...I was,” Kenma says to the cake, lightly tapping the prongs of his fork on the glass, as if it would help him feel less anxious.

“What about?”

And Kenma wants to say that he wanted for them to stay like this, that he wished time didn’t continue ticking so fast whenever they went to sleep, that he was very confused when it came to him.

But he waters it down to be less direct, confrontation never being a tool in his arsenal.

“I kind of wish...it was like this all the time,” Kenma says, the remnants of the strawberry glazing over his bottom lip, poking the extra whip cream on his plate from his cake with the prongs. “With the lights and stuff.” 

Kuroo nods. “I didn’t know how pretty it could be. I don’t really come to big areas like this back at home.”

“There is a rooftop garden a little ways away.” Kenma uses his fork to gesture in the direction of the newest addition to the district, a huge mall filled with eateries and clothing stores to spend more money on. It had been in construction when he arrived last year.

Not many people bothered to take the stairs to the roof from the fifth floor, so he hoped that still held true for tonight. It would be nice to waste the rest of the night there, to look at the top of buildings and feel big in a world where he usually felt invisible. 

“Okay. Let's go, now.” Kuroo’s brown eyes widen, a soft carmine filtering through his cheeks as he stands up, shoving the last bit of cake into his mouth, eager. 

Kenma follows him out of the building once they paid for their cake, his hands cold and soft with a warmth flooding into his fingertips as he hooked his pinky with Kenma’s. It was not snowing, yet Kenma constantly felt like he was walking on white clouds, leaving marks on his favorite places with Kuroo in the time they were together.

The garden was drenched in a gentle scarlet from the lights that lined the planter boxes there, and the velvet boxes that Kenma had in his jacket pocket felt heavier the more the night trickled in between his fingers.

This was going to be weird, but to be fair, it wasn’t entirely his idea. He was perfectly fine with getting Kuroo a normal gift, but his sister _insisted_ on taking him out the day before, while his brother pulled Kuroo with him downtown.

It was definitely one of those sneaky scheming things that your siblings did that made you want to fight them the next chance you got.

Kenma didn’t really have a choice.

“H-Hey, Kuro?” Kenma sits on the bench next to Kuroo, the moon painting pearly chalk across the glossy wood panels. 

The city looked just as beautiful as he had imagined, decorated in fairy lights. It felt like how he thought Christmas should, like how it _used to_.

Kuroo looks at him, and Kenma curls his fingers over the boxes, feeling the velvet grate against his sensitive skin. 

“Um...I got a gift for you, too.” Kenma swallows, his throat hot and full of rose stems. “Um, well...my sister kind of did, when I w-went with her. She took me to the jeweler’s…”

“Yes.”

Kenma blinks, his thought being torn in half as Kuroo looks right at him, interrupting him. “What?”

“Yes. I will marry you.”

His face erupts in crimson and he is so lucky that the nighttime hid his skin, wondering how he always said things like that with a straight face that made Kenma otherwise see stars. He shakes his head and hides his face with the hand that was not holding onto the boxes. “Kuro, be serious!”

Kuroo smiles and it tells Kenma that he was asking for the impossible. “Lemme see.”

Kenma is shaking, but he blames it on the cold, and pulls out the two small boxes in his hand. “She insisted that we get, um…”

Kuroo opens the velvet box with a piece of notebook paper taped to the top of it (titled “Kuroo”, so Kenma didn’t forget), the slate color of it rippling against the moonlight. He’s faced with a silver band. 

“Um...matching rings.” Kenma feels so _fucking embarrassed_ , opening his own box, feeling like he was in one of those hallucinations you get when the sun is too hot, his words leaving his mouth like a running faucet. “I’m sorry if it’s weird. Or...if it doesn’t fit. I just assumed your ring size.”

Kenma watches with tiny lungs as Kuroo slips the band over his right ring finger, dread falling over Kenma's shoulders as it stops above his middle knuckle. Kenma shuts his eyes and lets a breath out, dejected, and Kuroo smiles at him, holding his hand up to the moon, his fingers outstretched with the band over his middle joint.

“Cute!”

“Kuroo, it doesn’t fit.” Kenma reaches for his hand to take it off, planning to just go get it resized tomorrow and bring it back to him before the day was over. 

Kuroo shakes his head and gently pulls his hand away from Kenma, fingers glossing over the cool material, glinting in the red lights as if he's never seen something so pretty.

“I like it. It’s very nice. I want to keep it like this.” 

Kenma sighs with a small smile, glad that it went okay for them but finding Kuroo's appreciativeness cute. “It’s too small for your finger, love.” 

“It’s okay!”

Kenma makes a face and sighs slowly, knowing how much effort it would take to convince Kuroo of something once his heart was set on something else. Kuroo still has a dumb grin on his face as he shifted his hand to the left, then to the right, watching the lights collide with each other over his silver ring and spill technicolor onto their shoes.

He decided that if Kuroo thinks it’s alright, then it’s alright. 

He was okay with that, too.


	11. new year’s

It’s a Thursday evening when Kenma finds himself thinking.

New Year’s Day was tomorrow, and Kenma didn’t really plan on doing anything except for staying home and spending the new few days with his family, until it was time to go back home.

These past three weeks have been very good to him, despite all of the worries and nerves that had grown vines over his conscience on the way up here, green hands threatening as they wrapped around his throat. Kuroo proved to be a really good pretend-partner, and despite not wanting to do something like this ever again, he decided that he wouldn’t mind so much if it was with Kuroo. 

He hoped to hang out with Kuroo still, even after this. 

He remembers his ad, and how he still had it up, wondering if Kuroo had gotten any more callers to take him up on his offer. He wonders what he told them if they _had_ called and asked, if he spoke about him to random strangers to tell them he was busy right now, as if they were together.

There was a strange feeling in his chest at the thought of Kuroo talking to other people like he’d talked to him the first time they met.

He quickly lets the thought die as soon as it sprouted.

His family had been waiting for tomorrow, sat in the living room, and watching the festival on live television. He listened to the light taps of the silver ring around his finger against his glass of alcohol, trying to tie his thoughts together once they spilled out against the kitchen counter, jumbled and messy.

“Other half? Are you alright?” 

Kenma pulls himself back into his environment, his family’s voices pooling into his head from where they were. He blinks as Kuroo leans against the island across from him, tilting his head as Kenma sighs.

Ready to listen, like always.

Kenma lets his eyes fall to his hand, seeing the ring still on his finger as he holds his own glass. It hadn’t miraculously fit, like he’d hoped it would, either. He was wearing a red button-down, similar to the one at the diner, and while Kenma insisted that he didn’t need to get dressed up, he claimed he wanted to keep up the good impressions so far.

Kenma rolled his eyes at him, and helped Kuroo button it together, anyway.

“Yes. I’m thinking of tomorrow.” Kenma says, taking a sip from his glass, just to have something to do.

“We’re going to the shrine, right?” 

Kenma nods, and looks out the window, the air conditioning blowing stray strands of hair onto his lips, tickling his chin.

His nose scrunches at the tickling sensation and Kuroo smiles into his glass of alcohol.

He reaches up to lightly take it out of his face, and Kenma almost gags as a few butterflies flit up to his throat, feels sick at the want to stay here with him, rather than his usual bout of trying to get away from him. Kuroo’s autumn eyes float over his face once, seeing that Kenma was okay, just as he said he was, and there wasn’t a need to worry.

He could tell he was thinking about something other than tomorrow, but Kuroo never pried if Kenma didn’t tell him.

“There are about six minutes to midnight. Got anything you want to wish for?” Kuroo asks, his voice like black velvet as he finishes the alcohol in his glass, setting it on the counter behind him. 

“Maybe.” Kenma smiles, looking down at his own glass, anxiety streaming through his veins at the thought of Kuroo.

He liked to wish upon those same shooting stars that liked to stream behind Kuroo’s eyes, and blow out hope in the dandelions that were housed in his chest as he stood in warm rain.

“Can I know?” Kuroo asks, and Kenma shakes his head.

“They won’t come true if I tell you.” Kenma’s voice was barely loud enough to hear over his family’s, feeling so shy and nervous for no reason in front of him.

They were just friends. Friends talk about things like this all the time. He had conversations like this with Hinata sometimes, too.

Then he thinks about coming here with Hinata instead of Kuroo and feels sick.

“You're right. Then, we’ll both see if they come true, this time next year.”

Kenma smiles and nods, thinking about this same scenario happening in a year, still pretending to date each other just so his parents stay off of his back until the next. 

This was ridiculous. 

He brings his glass up to his mouth, eyes gravitating towards the silver band around his ring finger, the clear alcohol burning his throat and causing hot coals in his chest to burn steadily. He hated it, but the new year was approaching, and if he needed to do one thing, it was _that_.

Kuroo seemed to be thinking the same thing, looking at Kenma’s mouth, the other trying not to make it so obvious that he saw him do that.

He’s been doing that a lot, lately.

It made him feel uneasy, the fear of the unknown that Kuroo seemed to amplify whenever he was around. Kuroo was very mysterious when it came to certain things, reminding him a lot of shadows and the constant rain on the mountainside of the Andes. 

“Hey, Kuro…” Kenma hears his family begin to count down with the broadcast from the living room, the alcohol flickering adrenaline in his bloodstream like basement light bulbs.

It was barely there, but he felt it.

“Yes, Ken?”

“Thank you. I mean it.” Kenma taps his sock-covered foot on the tile beneath them, opting for looking at them rather than Kuroo. He felt like he was on display, like someone was holding a microphone to his mouth for the entire city to hear him say something so personal. He _hated_ it. “These past few weeks have been very bearable, thanks to you.” 

Kuroo smiles. “No worries, Kenma! We–”

“Hey! The ball is dropping soon!” Kenma's sister yells to them, and while he did want to hear what Kuroo was going to say, he was glad for the distraction. 

They didn’t go into the living room, some sort of barrier placing itself between them at the mention of midnight creeping up on them so soon. Kenma felt isolated with him again, his heart picking up a sick rhythm when he thinks of what they should do. 

They _should,_ but Kenma was terrified of it. So he didn’t mention it. He only hoped Kuroo didn’t either, because if he did, he would–

“Is it okay if I kiss you?”

Kenma feels like police lights once the words leave his mouth, standing a little closer to him than he last remembered.

He desperately searches for the humor behind his facial features, looks out for the twitch of his lips that told him he was just saying things to be annoying. He was trying, but...

There was none. Kenma was _terrified._

Kuroo blinks, his eyes flicking to Kenma’s lips again, and while the night was empty, Kenma felt warm, as if the sun had risen in his chest instead. His family’s voices drown out as they begin counting down from ten, Kenma’s glass shaking in his hand as a blush sweeps across his cheeks for the nth time since coming up here. 

His chest felt too small to contain his heartbeat. He tries to focus on it, the only thing in his head the irregular rhythm of it.

Kuroo tilts his head, eyebrows pinching together once as he tries to decipher how Kenma was feeling at such a big question. He was very hard to read, sometimes, especially when it came to things like this.

Especially _now,_ when there were only six seconds to midnight.

There was something about Kuroo that made Kenma _want._ He wasn’t sure exactly what it was that drew him, from his messy black hair to the way his presence drew attention without asking for it, but it was there. Every day was a constant and tireless pull from him, like tides once the moon glows tall for the night.

Kenma felt exhausted trying to make it back to shore. 

He swallows. 

“Y-yeah. Yeah.” 

Kuroo grins, and Kenma thinks there was nothing scarier than the boy he thought nearly nothing of three weeks ago, holding the weight of what felt like the rest of his life in his hands.

When Kuroo kisses him tonight, he feels the ground finally give out beneath them, his hands instinctively pressing against Kuroo’s chest to stop him, but feeling the push dissolve from his fingertips once Kuroo brings up his own hand underneath Kenma’s jaw, his thumb pressing against his chin. Kenma lets his eyes fall shut, his body feeling numb while his heart is set ablaze, curling his fingers in Kuroo’s shirt to keep him here, to bask in his radiance.

His eyebrows come together at the pressure from Kuroo, and there is a silent resolve within him that he couldn’t help but try to fight back against.

It was in vain, but he tried.

Kuroo’s fingertips spark fuses underneath his skin, engulfing him in a heat that he doesn’t think he’d ever forget about, even if he wanted to. The world falls silent as Kuroo kisses him softly again, holding him like he were thin glass, feeling him drag his thumb down a little and parting his lips further, tasting the leftover alcohol on his lips. He is in his head again, and warm rain trickles down his back as goosebumps litter his cold skin, fireflies circling around his feet and settling in his hair.

Kenma felt overwhelmed, at how effortlessly Kuroo could pull him into paradise with something as simple as kissing him. 

And it was a good kind of overwhelmed, something that Kenma could get used to with Kuroo with time.

It was something he could adapt to.

Kuroo pulls back slightly, ghosting his bottom lip over Kenma’s while his nose brushes his own, and Kenma’s mouth curls into a smile at the thought of finally kissing Kuroo while the night falls away from them.

And he dives into his chest in embarrassment, his cheeks hot at the realization of it being the first one of the new year, Kuroo hiding Kenma away from the world in his arms and hoping for more to come after tonight.

Maybe.

~❀~

Sparks of magenta and gold wave at them as soon as they stepped foot out of the door.

The night was completely barren of any stars, a navy canvas for the watercolor blur of fireworks that littered the sky like flowers. Kenma always loved New Year’s for this reason especially.

His family had opted for going to sleep once midnight struck, while Kuroo insisted on going to go see the fireworks while they were still out there, muffled pops tapping on the window and knocking on the doors, begging them to come outside and celebrate with them.

So he did.

They sat on the roof again, Kuroo lying against the shingles while Kenma sat on the slope, perpendicular to his body. Kuroo’s eyes reflected the vivid colors and Kenma thought he looked beautiful bathed in the electric neons that the fireworks brought for them.

He tried not to make it so obvious that he was looking at him every so often, just to see his small sweet grins that made a home in his head to think about later.

“This fucking _rocks!”_ Kuroo shouts at the fireworks, sharp whistling sounds dragging across the silence before the loud pops break Kenma out of his thoughts every so often. “Thank you so much, Kenma!”

“For what?” Kenma asks, brushing a few strands of hair out of his face from the wind playing with it. “I should be the one thanking you.”

“You always do. Let me be the appreciative one for once.” Kuroo smiles and reaches up to lightly tug on a piece of his hair that hadn’t been tied back into a bun, and Kenma glances just in time to see blue sapphires sprinkle over his golden skin as another firework branches out above them.

“Fine. You’re welcome.” 

The distant fireworks spread delicate greens and purples through the sky, like the Northern Lights, before they melt to the ground.

“And...I'm sorry if me kissing you was too much,” Kuroo says to the moon, too nervous to really look him in the face as the memory floats to the top of his head, almost distracting. "It was just in case. I figured it would be weird if we didn't, since it's New Year's."

Kenma's heart falls at the mention of it, and he thinks Kuroo wasn't very good for his health when it came to things like this.

Can't stuff like that cause high blood pressure or something?

He would have believed it. 

"N-no. It's okay. I didn't really think of that...with how it would look, either, so...thank you." Kenma's eyes watch the shingles of the roof instead, his lips quivering with the ghosts of Kuroo’s own, seeing him staring at him in his peripherals.

He wanted him to stop, his gaze feeling like blinding lights tonight, rather than the soft ones he’s come to like very much.

”Okay. Okay, good.”

And Kenma found himself wondering exactly what was so good about it, what was so good about finding himself thinking about him more often as the night waned, that made his brain feel fuzzy and his heart beat too quickly. He wondered what exactly was so good about Kuroo, to make him feel as he used to, back in middle school, except the feelings were more intrusive, more vivid, more attainable.

There was nothing _good_ about it.

Running from himself was tiring, and he had already worn his shoes into the ground, his feet aching from the effort of doing it for so long.

Maybe Hinata had been right. Maybe...

Hm.

Never mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! i'm very close to the end of the story so i will update next when everything is done! 
> 
> thank you for reading~


	12. something like that

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello!
> 
> sorry for the late update ;-; i wanted to publish the rest of the au as soon as i finished it and i finally did hehe so i hope you enjoy the rest of the fic! thank you very much if you're still here. i hope the rest doesn't disappoint and that you like it!!
> 
> also! i changed the title of the au - i think it fits a little better with the plot. the theme is still the same from the alone on thanksgiving ad though!
> 
> enjoy!

“Kuro...Hey, Kuro!”

Kenma lightly pokes Kuroo’s cheek with his free hand, his toothbrush in the other, the minty taste waking him up. He’d stayed awake since they were supposed to go to sleep, playing Undertale on his loveseat while Kuroo slept in his bed. He had been antsy for the morning since last night, needing to find something to keep him awake so he didn’t miss the sunrise.

Kuroo stirs with a sluggish hum, taking a deep breath that fills his stomach and stretching his arms above his chest, his eyes still shut. 

The nightfall melts through his window, and Kuroo is covered in blackberry indigo as the eventide wears thin, Kenma making sure to use the nightlight in his bathroom so as to not wake Kuroo up, yet still being able to see. And it was hard to see, but if it was better for Kuroo, then he didn’t mind. He felt the faintest hints of furor pump through his veins at the thought of seeing the first sunrise of the year with Kuroo, of practically sneaking out of the house when everyone was asleep.

Kenma and Kuroo were whole adults, but still. The idea of leaving while his parents were still sleeping was one of those things that made him feel free, the memory a golden medal of honor.

He smiles at nothing, poking Kuroo’s cheek again.

“Wake up, Kuro,” Kenma says softly, his voice muffled behind the white suds in his mouth, puckering his lips to keep it in while he wasn’t near the sink.

“Hm?” Kuroo squints at him, the creases underneath his eyes more prevalent when he first wakes up, brown eyes dark in what little light is filtering through Kenma’s room.

“Wake up. Come with me.” Kenma tilts his head back to keep the toothpaste in his mouth, before he rushes over to the sink to rinse it out. “The sunrise is soon!”

Kuroo sits up slowly, rubbing his eyes, the sheets falling off of him and pooling in his lap. “What...time is it?”

Kenma expected more resistance from him, more annoyance to be laced through his words rather than the smooth ring of his voice so early in the morning. His heart flutters at that, thinking of him still taking his time with him, no matter what it was.

“Um...three-thirty,” Kenma says, splashing cold water over his face, making his skin erupt in goosebumps. “In the morning.”

Kuroo sighs, stretching his arms above his head once more and yawning loudly into the air, making a sharp sound. “Okay. Where to?”

“There is an abandoned building not too far from here. Um...Shouyou and Lev and I used to go every new year and watch the first sunrise.” Kenma says, and it was here when he began to feel self-conscious for the first time in a while, a fuse in his belly that seeps a soft and steady current of reticence into his cheeks at the mention. “You don’t have to…! You don’t have to come if you’re too tired.”

And he knew it was in vain, considering Kuroo was already up. But it made him feel a bit better to at least try and have him back out if he wanted to.

Still, Lev’s name left an inquisitive ring in the back of Kuroo’s head when he heard Kenma say it. He knew something was up with him, something more that Kenma wasn’t telling him, and he wanted to know more about him.

He knew Kenma would probably never open up about that guy, either, and Kuroo wasn’t one to pry, but _god,_ he was so curious on how he affected Kenma back then, from middle school to now, exactly _what_ he did to him that he made Kenma hate opening up.

There had to have been something more.

Even then, Kuroo wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it, even if Kenma did allow for him to.

Before he let Kenma get the chance to notice he was ruminating over something, Kuroo rubs his puffy eyes and shakes his head, meeting Kenma in the bathroom and grabbing one of the maroon hand towels from underneath the sink, handing it to Kenma once he noticed that there wasn’t one on the dark marble countertop beside him. 

He’d forgotten in his haste.

“I’d love to.” Kuroo beams at Kenma, and despite how frigid it was in here, he couldn’t help but feel warm with him. 

Kuroo always made him feel better.

Kenma flushes, and uses the towel to hide his face and dry it at the same time, killing two birds with one stone as he leaves the bathroom to give it up to Kuroo, making his way to his closet to change, the rose gold on his cheeks out of Kuroo’s sight.

“The, um...sunrise is in an hour and a half.” Kenma swallows and squeezes a few strands of wet hair in between the towel to speed up the drying process as best as he could, his eyes going over to the many black hoodies in the corner of his closet from what he could see in the light from the bathroom that were all different shades, _in the light, if you squint!_

Kuroo stopped looking at them every time he passed the closet once he noticed the one on the right was just a _bit_ darker than the ones on the left.

“Okay. We should have a lot of time, then.” He turned to the faucet and grabbed his own toothbrush from the rack. “I’ll hurry.”

“Okay. Me too.”

~❀~

Kenma found himself itching to get the rundown building faster, Kuroo’s hand in his as they raced against the morning’s pendulum, the muted darkness caressing their cheeks as the stars spied on them with glowing eyes. They tried their best not to wake the house up, sneaking out through the front door and making their voyage to a spot along one of the boundless roads that branched out from his neighborhood.

“Hey, Kenma?” Kuroo watches his footsteps as they reach an incline, a bend with yellow directional signs pointing in the opposite direction, barely visible in the frosted moonlight. “Will we get into trouble if we go there?” 

Kenma shakes his head, his eyes tired, yet heavy with adventure as he leads Kuroo up the incline, stepping over cracks in the asphalt, splitting the street as if the pair had been running along the San Andreas faults instead.

“We should be okay. I used to go there all the time, with Shouyou and Lev.” His name doesn’t sting his tongue as much today, the sour taste idles in his throat. “No one goes there.”

Kuroo smiles, feeling of candle flame as he forgets about any worries he’s had regarding the holiday, regarding school back at home, regarding _himself._ He was slowly unlocking doors in Kenma, and found himself wanting to stay along for the ride for as long as time allowed. 

He was okay.

“We’re gonna watch the first sunrise of the year together, right?” Kuroo asks, and Kenma feels him squeeze his hand slightly in excitement.

There are two headlights of a lone, stray car cruising down the street, and he tugs him to the side, letting it pass, the subdued rumble of the engine enticing a smile from him. 

Kuroo hopes that Kenma doesn't look back at him anytime soon as his face is veiled in roseate as he nods, knowing that this was a big deal for some people to do – watching the first sunrise of the year together. He cannot tell if this was just part of their pretend-plan or completely unrelated.

The latter makes his heart bound.

He tries to focus on his steps, making sure he didn’t step on anything and trip, but he couldn’t help but let his eyes wander to their hands. They both had their rings on, despite never bringing it up again to each other after that night. 

Kuroo often wondered why Kenma still wore his, why he actively took it off and slipped it back on before the morning, as if it was routine. If it was something he didn’t care about, he would just keep it on or off, and not worry about it.

But the more he tried to pinpoint his reasoning, the less he understood his own.

He often wondered if it was for Kenma’s parents to see, or as a reminder of him if they were to be separated. In the short time he’s gotten to know him, he’s found that Kenma’s love language was skewed and indefinite, but the thrill was in finding out how to decipher it. The payoff was worth it, when Kuroo would point it out and Kenma would hide his face in his hands, embarrassed and charming.

And he didn’t expect anything from him, considering he’d never dated anyone before, and even then, this was just for show.

It just felt more than, sometimes.

Hm.

He couldn’t help but wonder, if they were to be in a real relationship, if Kenma would still silently slip his fingers through his own like he does now, if Kenma would still remember to wear their rings every day, if Kenma would still sparsely and rapidly throw out pet names for him to catch if he was quick enough.

Regardless, Kuroo decided that he liked the way their hands looked, linked in the shine of the moon.

“We’re here. Are you doing okay?” 

Kenma’s soft voice breaks through his train of thought, and there is a sound of an active current that seems to be coming from the core of the earth a ways away. They’re on another street, barren save for a dirty stop sign all the way down. There were a few houses littered behind the sidewalk, while some were under construction, and some were completely discarded. 

The darkness was beginning to shatter beneath the new sunrise, and once Kuroo spotted it, he gasped.

“Ken, it’s starting!”

Kenma looks up towards the sky; seeing a tarnished bronze begin to plod its way over the navies that they had gotten used to. He rushes into the abandoned building with Kuroo trailing behind him, leading him up a flight of concrete stairs, the sun melting in through the bare openings for doors and windows that never got their promises fulfilled.

Kenma lets go of Kuroo’s hand, only to pull himself through one of the gaping windows, the morning breeze tickling his face and blowing his hair into his eyes. There is the smell of water and Kuroo sees a canal shared within the backyard of the houses they were near, streaming to a place that Kuroo thinks the road ends.

 _If_ they end.

“We're just in time, Kuro!” 

Kenma jogs over to the edge of the roof, the houses are silhouettes against the gradient of the dawn, holding the ante meridiem on shingled shoulders, and when Kuroo meets him there, he thinks this is the prettiest sight he’s ever seen.

Well, _one_ of them.

Bright orange crepuscular rays pierce through the darker clouds above them, telling them that the sun was coming. Kenma sits at the ledge, letting his legs dangle, the phantoms of Hinata’s and Lev’s voices still humming within the corners of the ceiling.

He still heard their giggles echoing through the concrete walls, their footsteps still running up the stairs as they chased the moon into the sunrise.

He wished he could go back, to feel the same thing he felt before, to cherish it for as long as he could before growing up.

He’s sentimental now, but as Kuroo sits beside him this morning, he replaces as much of the loss as he was able to, without even realizing it.

Kenma is glad to have him.

“I am tired,” Kuroo says, blinking into the pinks that blushed above the clouds, his skin golden in the dense sunlight peeking beneath the low daybreak.

Kenma is stuck as Kuroo scoots away from him a little, making more room for himself. He rests his head on Kenma’s lap, keeping his hands tucked underneath his chin, protecting, as if to hide from the imminent danger of having to stay awake.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Kenma says, bringing a hand up to gently smooth back Kuroo’s hair from his forehead, soft and fluffy and as dark as ink, stifling the sun, even in the morning. “Thank you for still coming with me.”

“I would never say no to you, other half.” Kuroo lets his eyes follow the tiny mayflies that rippled the surface of the water beneath their wings, the canal allowing the sun in as it glimmered off of the soft currents. “Plus, I’d rather be spending the first sunrise with you rather than by myself. Bokuto would have never woken up this early for it.”

Kenma smiles with Kuroo and gives his attention back to him.

“How is he? Have you checked in with him recently?” He asks, glancing at Kuroo and watching the eos skip over his skin, his tired eyes wavering, his cheeks pink. 

Kenma liked Kuroo’s cheeks a lot, ever since he noticed the very light freckles that littered his skin like a field of poppies on one of the more freezing days here. They were missable and often changed depending on the weather, snowflakes that melted in the sun and darkened in the cold. 

He often thought of them when playing games on his phone, or eating, or trying to fall asleep at night. He liked when he smiled, because they would puff like pillows, or when he woke up in the morning, strawberry sugar dusted over them.

Kenma thought that pink was _also_ one of Kuroo’s colors that would occupy his headspace for quite some time.

He blushes and looks away.

“Yeah. He’s doing okay.” Kuroo shuts his eyes and rests his hands on his chest, his fingers laced. “I miss him.”

“I know the feeling.” Kenma smiles, thinking of Hinata, the clouds blossoming in blues and yellows. He did not realize how fast time was passing. “But we only have less than a week left, and we could go home to our friends.”

“You better not abandon me after we get home, Kenma,” Kuroo says, eyebrows coming together as he looks up at him. “No refunds!”

“I should be saying the same thing, Mr. Craigslist Boyfriend.” Kenma grins and gently pulls Kuroo’s hair in between his thumb and forefinger until he reaches the ends, watching black strands float back down to Kuroo’s head, the wind playing with the hair that always seemed to stay in his face, brushing it back for a moment.

Sunlight flooded his eyes, and Kenma was looking back at honey and gold flecks, rather than the dark brown he was so used to, and Kenma remembers that Kuroo was a real person and _not_ someone who he only dreamed of. 

He felt as if he’d been floating on warm water, lilies singing to the sky as they drift beside him.

“Ah! Speaking of…” Kuroo blinks and settles his head more comfortably on Kenma’s lap. “Someone texted me about it last night.”

Oh. He slips beneath the surface.

Kenma’s stomach suddenly falls, making him feel sick. He feels annoyed at the fact that he’d forgotten Kuroo still had it up, that he’d forgotten that this was still a favor that someone else might have needed, too.

He tries not to tense so much, keeping his eyes trained on his shoes, lightly kicking them back and forth against the ledge he was on, the rubber of his soles entertaining him for a moment. 

“R-really? What about?” Kenma tries his best to pull from his middle school acting classes, pretending to be interested but honestly just wanting to talk about _literally_ anything else.

He didn’t really understand why he felt so uncomfortable talking about this. If it were anyone else, he’d be happy for them, that they’d finally got someone else to take them up on their offer that they were close to taking down because nobody called.

“A girl from the university near me.” Kuroo shrugs, shutting his eyes and letting the newfound sunlight pour over his face as morning approached. “She asked me to go on a double date with her to get her friends off her back. Sounds simple enough, right?”

“Yeah.” Kenma feels his words running dry and stale, finding them too difficult to let trickle off of his tongue, the want to keep this conversation going diminishing.

He wonders if Kuroo would make an effort to get to know her beforehand, too. 

“When?” Kenma asks, hoping he was keeping up a good enough bluff for Kuroo not to ask about the sudden tone change. 

He blames it on just being tired. It was just barely 6am. 

It was reasonable.

“The weekend we get back,” Kuroo says, completely calm, as if this was another boring thing that he did because he had to, as if the conversation was about school or work or _friggin’_ grocery shopping. “I told her I would do it for her.”

Kenma feels sticky in his skin as the simmer in his bloodstream turns into a boil. He wants to ask Kuroo many things, talk about it some more, just because he was way more curious about her than he really cared to be. 

“Okay. Well...that’s good, I guess.” Kenma quickly tries to think, to make the conversation keep going. “At least more people are seeing it. You...you don’t have to take it down, now.”

He had no reason to be _this_ irritated by Kuroo’s simple statement. It wasn’t a big deal.

Yeah.

Not a big deal.

Kenma suppresses the heaviness in his chest by thinking of things that _were_ big deals, like upcoming finals you forgot about or being caught in a snowstorm. It didn’t make him feel better, but it distracted him for a bit.

He would never tell him, though.

And while Kuroo talked about the mayflies, as Kenma listened to his silvery voice ripple through the quiet morning, as Kenma let his mind slip off of the concrete and bury itself into the soil, as he tries to ignore the butterflies fluttering wildly in his stomach with no purpose, the sun rises for the first time this year.

Kenma felt the world around him cave in.

Just a little.

~❀~

“Hey. You seem distracted, ever since we came back home this morning.” Kenma says quietly, as if trying not to disturb the rest of the house.

Kuroo blinks, and the room is shrouded in a pitch black darkness as the clouds muffled the moonshine that normally tucked itself into Kenma’s bed. They’d spent the rest of the day at the shrine with his family, before they made food for them, wanting to take the rest of the time Kenma was here and spend it together.

Not that he minded.

His family was actually very pleasant when they weren’t painted in all of Kenma’s worst-case-scenarios he liked to create in his head. 

“Um...it’s just...I was kinda curious about something.” Kuroo says, a strange crawling feeling underneath his skin as he thinks of him again. “It’s about Lev. If that’s okay.”

Kenma’s heart drops, and he suddenly gets uncomfortable, the bedsheets feeling too heavy over his body. The recollection of Lev pressed down on his chest, trapping him. 

“Wh-what about him?” Kenma asks, very hesitant.

Kuroo wants to ask him why he was so caught up on him, exactly why he was so important to Kenma to make him push people away. He wished he could get inside his head and figure him out. He knew it was a touchy subject for him, so he thought of a way to ask without doing too much.

“Are you sure it’s okay if I ask about him?” Kuroo asks again, and Kenma nods quickly, humming in response before he gets a chance to change his mind.

Kenma waits for him, all of his thoughts running rampant in the back of his head as he tries to predict what Kuroo was going to ask.

“...You were in love with him, weren’t you?”

Kenma deflates, releasing a breath from his nose that sounds like a tire when there’s a nail in it, the room becoming just a little colder at the fact that he was _this_ transparent. He feels just like television static as he remembers him, grey and fuzzy and disoriented because he didn’t _want_ to talk about it, but he kind of had to because Kuroo had hit the nail on the head and there was no use trying to skimp around it.

Kuroo turns himself so that he could face Kenma beside him, looking at his face in what little light was poking through the curtains at him, trying to read him. He knew he probably struck a nerve, but Kenma didn’t look upset, yet. 

Just dejected.

“Yeah.” Kenma nods his head against the pillow, his soft eyes staring at the ceiling, following the patterns of the stucco, feeling uncomfortable as he lets his heart open up and spill his secrets onto the blankets for Kuroo to hear. “Something like that.”

“Did he know?” 

Kenma nods his head again, sighing through his nose again as the room felt too small for them to truly fit in it. He thinks he should have died of embarrassment the day he found out back then.

It just wasn’t a thing that he’d ever want to bring up again.

“He did.” Kuroo watches as Kenma turns to face him, too, bringing the comforter up to his chin, doing his best to hide while also trying not to cover up too much.

There was a strange thing going on. 

Kenma didn’t really mind talking about it as much as he thought he would. He hated the feeling, sure. But he didn’t immediately change the subject as he used to whenever Hinata brought it up, or feel as humiliated as he’d predicted. Kuroo was talking to him like it was normal, like it was okay for something that small to impact him so much, like they were truly hidden with nobody around to hear them and it was okay to be vulnerable for a little while.

It was less of an interrogation, more of a conversation. 

Kenma tries to calm down.

“How’d he find out?”

Kenma slots his tongue between his teeth as he looks at the logo on Kuroo’s shirt, faded and ruined from the washing machine, the grey material soaking up all the moonlight from behind his shoulder. 

That was a good question, one that he used to ask himself plenty of times before he ran as far away from it as he could, putting enough distance between himself and the answers to not worry about it again.

Kenma shrugs and shakes his head, balling his fist up in the covers and bring them up to his mouth, breaking eye contact with Kuroo for the split second he had it, beginning to get flustered now.

“I was out to only a few people back then...only Shouyou and another girl knew about Lev.” Kenma’s cheeks flood at the recognition, remembers how humiliated he was and how much he regretted his time in middle school. 

He wished he could go back and tell himself to stay home that day, like he often wished he could do. It was one of those things you tried to forget, but it stuck to the best parts of your memories like spider webs, and no matter how many times you tried to swat it away with new ones, with _better_ ones, there were always still traces of it, wispy regret hanging from the corners of your head. 

Kenma hated it.

“Did she tell him?” Kuroo asks, eyes stark with interest as Kenma practically caves in on himself, hiding his cheeks with the covers and pressing his head against the pillows, hoping for the mattress to swallow him whole _right now_. 

“She...did. In front of a bunch of her own friends. It was so fucking embarrassing.” Kenma squeezes his fists in the covers and the normally soft material feels like steel wool against his skin. “He didn’t talk to me again after that. And then he moved away for high school without telling me or Shouyou. So, um...it’s just been hard to talk to new people. And it’s probably a dumb reason, but...” 

“Not at all,” Kuroo says. “I’m not gonna say I understand what you felt, but I get it. It makes sense.”

Kenma nods, too shy to look Kuroo in the face after talking about his stupid friend from middle school that broke his heart for the first time and the last without realizing it. He felt so dumb, thinking it didn’t sound so much like a big deal anymore.

“It really, um...messed everything up. But I guess it was my fault for trusting them so much.” Kenma shrugs again, hoping he was doing enough for Kuroo to not feel bad for him. “Shouyou’s been the only one that stuck with me.”

“He seems like a very good person.” Kuroo grins and his voice is light as he breathes out a giggle, an image of orange hair and a smile like lightbulbs in the dark passing through his head.

Kenma smiles, and a stroke of longing to see him again strikes his chest. “He really is. And...I told you before...it’s been easier to open up to people, lately. So, I guess it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay. But nobody ever really knows how to deal with feelings in middle school. Or, ever, sometimes.” Kuroo says, and Kenma smiles, thinking he didn’t even know the half of it. It was a struggle now, even at nineteen. 

“Yeah.” 

Kuroo perks up a bit, a flash of light in the otherwise dark room. “But hey, that’s still good! I’m sure Hinata’s a great help for you.”

Kenma rolls his eyes and looks back up to Kuroo, reaching out and gently pushing his shoulder. He feels his eyes on him, and Kenma sighs.

“I am talking about you, dummy.”

Kuroo’s heart picks up and he blinks, before looking up at the ceiling, his nerves beginning to run. Kuroo bites the inside of his bottom lip, finding he only truly got this nervous before presentations in front of his class.

This was strange.

But while they were still on the topic, there was something that he still wanted to ask. The question was teetering on the tip of his tongue, unsure of whether to ask it.

It was just a hypothetical, but he was afraid of getting himself into trouble.

“Hm. On the topic of opening up...what would you do if…” Kuroo hums, trying to come up with a way to word it. “If someone was in love with you now?”

Kenma makes a face and Kuroo knows there’s a blush swept over his cheeks. “What?”

“Hypothetically speaking. Just, like…” Kuroo shrugs. “Like, someone. Anyone. What would you do?”

Kenma blinks and tries to think. He can’t really fathom the idea of anyone, really, wasting their time in a relationship, much less wasting it on him. There were many things for someone to do besides be with him, so why chose to do so? He was too broken to be loved now. 

Kenma shakes his head sharply, the idea of it giving him a terrible impression that he couldn’t shake. “Can’t imagine it.”

Kuroo tilts his head, making a shuffling sound against the pillows. Kenma feels his eyes on him again, and he imagines his eyebrows are furrowed. “Why not? What, you don’t think you deserve it?”

“Something like that.” Kenma feels his limit coming quickly, suspended in a thick uncomfortable that he needs to break out of soon before Kuroo got the chance to ask why. “I wanna talk about something else, please.”

“Okay,” Kuroo says, the rest of his thoughts paused as he tries to come up with something else. “We can. You first.”

And as Kenma spoke of one of the many sights that were hidden in the recesses of the town that they didn’t have time to visit, Kuroo thinks he deserved the sun and the stars and everything in between, and there was not enough the world could give him to make up for how good he was.

Kenma, on the other hand, thinks he was starting to really like Kuroo. 

If he could visualize it, he’d be standing on the very edge of a cliff, swaying with the wind, his mind already on the way down towards the warm waters below him, ready to take him in with loving arms. The sun is pleasantly sweltering as it sits high above him, encouraging him to take some sort of leap of faith while the water was still tranquil, while the currents were dormant. 

Kenma’s only jumped off of one cliff in his entire life and it was last summer, with Hinata, but he thinks that’s it, if he _really_ had to explain it. 

The feeling was a close tie.

Falling in love felt like the slip of hesitant feet off of rocky edges, like plunging into water tempered by the sun while holding onto the last bits of summer vacation before it trickled from your fingers. Or maybe running down an empty inclined road to an abandoned building to watch the sunrise.

Eh.

Something like that. 

~❀~

The morning brought a longing for Kuroo that Kenma could not pinpoint exactly where it came from, but he was missing him already, despite still being in bed with him.

He was drawn to him, still, a magnetic pull that stemmed from his bones, an orbital tug that kept him grounded to him, no matter how many times he tried to run away from it.

Kuroo was just that persuasive, and Kenma wasn’t strong enough to break away. And that was okay. 

He didn’t mind.

It’s just that, now, as Kenma is looking over Kuroo as he sleeps soundly on his back, as he finds himself wanting more but not knowing exactly _what,_ is when he thinks he should have just come here alone after all.

These past few weeks held some of the best experiences he’s ever had over here, but if he knew he’d be this conflicted by the time it was over, he would have just rather been by himself.

His eyes float over Kuroo’s smooth skin, over his dark sweeping eyelashes and the silver piercings in his ear that added a delicate allure to his already gentle cynosure. 

Kenma finds himself reaching out to lightly brush the black hair out of Kuroo’s face, watching as it falls over his pillows like wisps of ink in water. They are trapped in a stagnant silence, protecting them from the tick of time as he watches Kuroo’s eyebrows gently come together, his eyes still shut.

He feels him lightly push against his fingers, as if his skin was searching for his touch, as if silently answering his questions, but making everything that much more complicated.

Kenma retracts his hand quickly, thinking he’d accidentally wake him.

He didn’t, not yet.

But as he was up and thinking in the emptiness his room actually brought with it, he almost wished he had, just to hear his voice and fill up the space with it, to distract him from himself.

The oak tree outside trembles.


	13. time

It’s been two weeks since they’d gotten home from Kenma’s parents’ house.

The girl ended up canceling on the date as soon as Kuroo had gotten ready for it that Saturday night, which in turn, caused him to call Kenma and insist on taking him out instead. And despite feeling a sick contentment in Kuroo not going on that fake date, he still tried his best to stay home for the night instead of being excited about the opportunity. 

He hadn’t been in the mood to go out any more than he usually does, but Kuroo’s voice was enough to make him want to get off of his computer and go somewhere fun with him, and Kuroo was usually one to keep at something until he got what he wanted, so Kenma couldn’t stay home after all.

They ended up at a small music venue beside Kuroo’s university that was known for giving couple’s discounts and anniversary freebies for the hour after 7pm, and Kuroo kissed him while the lights drenched them in violets, _just in case_ , and Kenma ran above the clouds that housed blue fireworks and made his head cling to the stars.

It seems Kuroo liked to send him to space more than he was okay with.

Kenma did not intend to spend so much time thinking of Kuroo, nor did he intend on reminiscing about the holidays or their impromptu dates that followed whenever he was alone. He did not intend to spend so much time on the phone with him once the night urged them to bed, or waking up to a pixelated image of him still sleeping on the other end. He did not intend to have his name at the tip of his tongue, ready to speak of every exciting instance with him (and it didn’t help that Hinata was even nosier when it came to Kuroo, instigating rants and then making him want to disintegrate when he catches himself rambling).

It was strange, and it was bad enough that he was doing a very bad job ignoring it.

Kenma was never a big fan of the feeling of falling, waking up abruptly from dreams and dreading rollercoasters with too big of a drop, not wanting to face the plunge. He never planned on going skydiving or taking rides in hot air balloons, and he avoided airplanes at all costs because of the turbulence. 

But he’s decided that with Kuroo, he didn’t mind the fall so much.

He decided to spend less time repairing the cracks in his walls, to let a little more sunlight in while it was still out.


	14. favors

**kuro:** _kenma i’m gonna call u in like two seconds_

 **kuro:** _pls pick up and call me a petname_

 **kuro:** _just act like u are in love with me go along with it_

 **kuro:** _in desperate need of ur help !!_

**_wait what_ **

**_what_ **

**_kuro_ **

Kenma looks at the grey typing bubbles in the corner of his phone ripple twice, before they disappear completely, the music from his video game’s pause screen playing from his television. 

Kuroo’s name flashes on the screen, and Kenma feels ill once his heart picks up at the contact, the phone too heavy in his hands. They’ve hung out with each other nearly everyday for the past couple of weeks, yet he still made him nervous just by calling, every single time.

This is ridiculous.

Kenma swallows and prepares himself to talk to Kuroo, and with shaking fingers and a head that was full of wind, he taps the green call button, guiding the phone to his ear.

_“Hello, other half!”_

Kenma looks to his lap, wondering why he was calling in the first place. Not that he minded hearing Kuroo’s voice, but it was still kind of strange. 

He sighs.

“H-hi, my love.”

_“Very glad you picked up. You know Akaashi, right?”_

Kenma nods at the mention of his name, remembering him from the party. Kuroo doesn't say anything, and then he remembers that Kuroo was not in front of him and couldn’t see him nod.

“Yeah, I know Akaashi.”

_“Well! This semester he got himself a spot as president of the student union. He booked us a place and we’re all going out tonight as a group, and we could bring someone with us! Are you down to be my plus one?”_

No, Kenma was _not_ down.

It was scary enough spending time with Kuroo when it was just the two of them, much less a group. There was something about the eyes of other people on him, giving him looks that he couldn't read, that made him anxious. He was thinking way too much about it, knowing Kuroo was waiting for an answer on the other line. And even worse, with the way he was acting, it probably meant he was in front of people when he was asking to prove that he _had_ a plus one to bring.

Even _more_ worse, that meant they had to act like a couple again.

How convenient.

Kenma sighs again, thinking of what Hinata would tell him in this situation. He would push him to go, and insist on changing up his hairstyle, maybe putting more clips in it or something extra to really make it good.

Jeez.

“Yeah...I’ll come. What time?” Kenma tugs a piece of his hair in between his fingers as he thinks, trying to calm himself down enough to go through with it. His cheeks were warm and the tips of his ears were stained ruby at the thought of hanging out in a group of strangers with Kuroo.

He does not think this is a good idea.

The hair tug also didn’t help him.

_“Can you meet me in an hour, at seven? We’re going to that same venue we went to last time.”_

Kenma’s blood runs cold and his breath catches in his throat. The venue with the _freebies_ and _couple’s discounts._ He knew he would have to be the one pretending to be Kuroo’s partner this time, but hearing the words leave his mouth made them weigh a lot more than they did when he was just thinking about them. 

He shuts his eyes and tries to think of any viable way out of this, to just make it up to Kuroo some other time. The thought of meeting new people while probably having to do something embarrassing leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

“I could.” Kenma runs his fingers over his eyebrow, trying to think. “I’ll meet you at seven.”

_“I’ll be waiting for you in the front, by the palm tree!”_

Kenma can’t help but smile at his enthusiasm, even as he was bold face lying to his friends, or whomever was listening to their conversation. It almost sounded real, had he been the one looking in on them. 

“Okay. Is that all?” Kenma taps his thumbnail on his bottom teeth as he listens to the music coming from his television, waiting for Kuroo to say anything else, his fingers itching to hang up so he could go mentally prepare for the outing later. 

_“Yes, that’s it. I’ll see you later! I love you.”_

Kenma’s eyes blow wide and he feels his heart firework into a mess of butterflies in his chest, missing the chance to breathe again as he registers what he said. It was one of those things that happen so quickly that you don’t really have time to follow it until it is gone, something so fleeting and elusive, slipping out of his grasp. Those words should have been wrapped up with a pink satin bow on top of it, sat on the top shelf and waiting to be given out to someone when you really meant for them to have it.

Not thrown out like _that._

He thinks that was overkill. 

Before he could really understand what was going on, there are steady beeps from the dial tone on the other end, telling him that he’d hung up. 

He sighs and presses his hand to his cheeks, hot with the sound of Kuroo’s voice sparking currents beneath them, flattery pressed against his lips as he smiles at the thought.

It quickly falls when he catches himself, the good feeling being replaced with humiliation.

Kenma was _so_ in trouble.

~❀~

**_SHOUYOU_ **

**_SHOUYOUSHOUYOUSHOUYOU_ **

**shouyou:** _kenma! love of my life! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧_

 **shouyou:** _what brings u to my office on this fine evening_

 **shouyou:** _do u need me to come over or something_

**_no_ **

**_yes_ **

**_maybe_ **

**_no_ **

**_no it’s okay_ **

**shouyou:** _,,,,, ok i’m coming over_

**_NO I HAVE TO LEAVE SOON_ **

**_IT’S JUST_ **

**_I AM IN BIG TROUBLE_ **

**shouyou:** _WHAT????_

 **shouyou:** _LIKE CATTAIL TROUBLE????_

**_NO BUT IT FUCKIN FEELS LIKE CATTAIL TROUBLE_ **

**_kuro asked if i could be his plus one to an outing tonight_ **

**shouyou:** _dude whaaat_

 **shouyou:** _i thought u needed actual help >:| _

**shouyou:** _just be yourself kenma!! they’ll love u!!! u are the coolest person i know! <333 _

**_I DO NEED ACTUAL HELP_ **

**_ITS GONNA BE A GROUP OF PEOPLE_ **

**_I HAVE TO ACT LIKE IM IN LOVE WITH KUROO IN FRONT OF A BUNCH OF PEOPLE_ **

**_IM SHITTING BRICKS_ **

**_SHOUYOUUUU_ **

**shouyou:** _act??? i HAVE to laugh_

 **shouyou:** _kenma u are literally in love with that man idk how many times i have to keep telling u_

 **shouyou:** _i came over as soon as i got back and U DIDNT EVEN ASK HOW MY TRIP BACK WAS U IMMEDIATELY STARTED TALKING ABOUT KUROO_

**_uhhh_ **

**_i pretend i do not see_ **

**shouyou:** _heart’s been broke so many times <//3 _

**_SHOUYOU PLS BE SERIOUS ABOUT THIS IM BEGGING U_ **

**shouyou:** _how long have u two been together again???_

**_we’ve been like_ **

**_fake together_ **

**_for like_ **

**_idk two months now_ **

**_it’s january so like two months yeah_ **

**_bUT WE’RE JUST USING EACH OTHER SO PEOPLE COULD GET OFF OUR BACKS_ **

**_AND FOR THE COUPLES DISCOUNTS_ **

**shouyou:** _rightttttt rightttt_

**_what does that have to do with anything!_ **

**shouyou:** _people fall in love in less than a week did u know that_

**_shouyou u are literally doing everything except helping me feel better_ **

**_tf imma do ;-;_ **

**shouyou:** _as i said, be yourself! that way it will be easy to pretend to be in love with kuroo because it’s already happening (◡‿◡✿)_

**_u little shit_ **

**_i am not in love with kuro dammit_ **

**_i am just nervous_ **

**_do i wear my ring????_ **

**shouyou:** _ring???_

 **shouyou:** _what ring_

**_my sister insisted for me to get us matching rings for christmas_ **

**shouyou:** _LIKE A PROMISE RING??? ARE YOU SHITTING ME RIGHT NOW_

 **shouyou:** _U HAVE TO BE SHITTING ME_

 **shouyou:** _YOU GUYS HAVE MATCHING RINGS AND YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT PEOPLE SEEING THROUGH YOU TWO?? KENMA I–_

 **shouyou:** _WEAR THE RING HELLO??*^(% &@#$@*}: _

**_and should i put those clips in my hair again??????_ **

**_im stressed T-T_ **

**shouyou:** _i thought u hated those clips_

 **shouyou:** _ohhhh kuroo likes them doesn’t he? thats why u wanna wear them hmmmm_

**_HHHH IM HANGING UP_ **

**shouyou:** _WE’RE TEXTING U CANT HANG UP_

 **shouyou:** _GET BACK HERE_

 **shouyou:** _KENMA!!_

~❀~

The blood rushed straight to Kenma’s cheeks as soon as he parked his car, his heartbeat racing and drumming against his fingertips as he held onto the steering wheel, like it would ground him, trying to loosen the knots in his stomach.

The night above him felt infinite, yet, he was stuck in a vacuum, as if the world had been packed into a tiny cube and it was getting smaller and smaller the closer he got to the venue, crushing him in its recesses. He could hear the muffled music pounding against the walls of the venue and sending vibrations into the asphalt beneath the tires. 

He used the full hour he had left getting ready to see Kuroo, half of the time occupied with deciding on whether or not to wear the red clips again. He was already late by the time he left his house, so he tried to hurry as best as he could while also following street rules. 

They were simply moral obstacles that he _had_ been willing to overcome, but he figured getting a ticket would be bad and he could not handle the embarrassment of that situation, so he obeyed the law tonight.

He couldn’t deny the urge to get out and go spend time with Kuroo while he was free, however. Before he had to go on another _date_ with someone, calling about that stupid Craigslist ad.

He wanted him to delete it.

No. 

No, he didn’t. 

Did he?

He listens to the heavy taps of the silver ring on his finger over the material of the wheel, bringing him back to his environment, thinking that he’s being a little too dramatic. There was no need to delete the ad, and he knew it. 

This meant nothing, not really. Not like _that._

Kenma sighs and gets out before more thoughts have a chance to tangle themselves into his logic, his legs feeling like toothpicks as he carries himself to the entrance. Kuroo is there, just like he said, brown eyes looking almost concerned as he watched the street straight ahead, his arms crossed over his chest. 

He sees him tap his forefinger on his arm rhythmically. 

Kenma feels bad once he realizes he was probably afraid that he wouldn’t show up, so he walks a little faster, turning into a light jog the last few feet towards him. Kuroo turns his head towards the opposite end of the street, where the parking lot was, and upon seeing Kenma, he flashes him a bright grin and Kenma looks away from him.

Kenma thinks it’s annoying how Kuroo had the ability, the _audacity_ even, to make him blush this much and feel nervous under his gaze. 

He should be used to it by now, for fuck’s sake.

“Kenma!” Kuroo rushes to him and snakes his arms around his waist, the nighttime brisk, and before he has the opportunity to react, he’s lifted for a moment, Kuroo pressed against him.

“Kuro! P-put me down!” Kenma breathes out a smile at the adrenaline anyway, thinking that if he were to reach up, he’d be able to touch the moon. He gently pounds on Kuroo’s shoulder with his fists, his hands making a muffled patting sound in the material of his jacket. “People could see us!”

Kuroo does put him down, and steps back, that same, huge smile on his face, and Kenma wonders what he sees in him to make him so excited to see him, after spending all that time with him at his parents’, or the times after that when they took advantage of the discounts at the various places around town. He’s seen him often enough for it to feel mundane.

So why had Kenma been just as happy to see him, too? 

He doesn’t know either.

“I was worried about you! You didn’t answer my texts.” Kuroo makes a dramatic pouting face, and Kenma looks at the ground, his hair falling into his face save for the portion that he had clipped back.

“I was driving…” Kenma holds onto his forefinger and looks at the floor, sort of embarrassed. “I didn’t wanna crash. I’m sorry for being late.” 

Kuroo hums. “I respect your responsibility. I forgive you.” 

Kenma smiles again and lightly pushes Kuroo’s shoulder, making the other chuckle, the same ones that sounded like wind chimes that Kenma loved so much. Kuroo looks to the ground and the music from inside the venue died out, telling them that it was time for another band to take to the stage. Kenma looks at the doors, as if they would tell him what his next move was. Spending time with Kuroo never felt awkward, but tonight was different.

It was strange.

Maybe it was because of that conversation with Hinata before coming here.

“Um...do you–”

“Hey, hey! Kuroo, what are you—” 

Kenma stops, his attention on the door again and seeing Bokuto practically burst through them, Akaashi quietly following behind him, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He immediately got nervous at Bokuto’s boisterous nature, his heart picking up as soon as he made eye contact with Kenma standing in front of him.

His mouth forms an “o” shape as a gasp escapes him. _“Kenma!”_

His voice sounds like how carpets felt, soft with a bit of a rough edge and it makes Kenma smile, despite hating the feeling of being put on blast like that. Bokuto’s golden eyes were spotlights, Kenma quickly becoming uneasy despite practically knowing Bokuto from all the times Kuroo’s talked about him.

Plus, they met once already, so what gives?

“Hi, Bokuto.” Kenma nods his head politely to them and musters up a watery grin that he knew they could probably see through. “H-hello, Akaashi.”

“It’s good to finally see you again, Kenma! Kuroo would _not_ shut the hell up about you once you guys got back.” Bokuto rolls his eyes with a shake of his head, his hands on his hips, exasperated. Akaashi grins softly and looks at the floor, knowing. “When I came home that weekend, after spending time with Akaashi, he didn’t even ask me—”

And while Kenma’s eyes blow wide at the fact that Kuroo talked about him to his roommate, the boy in question rushes to Bokuto and turns him around over his shoulders, making his way towards the doors, interrupting him.

 _“Okay!_ Alright. Let’s just go in.” Kuroo looks back over his shoulder and gives Kenma a small smile. “Come on, other half.”

Kenma follows closely behind Kuroo, holding onto the edge of his shirt and skating past the small crowd of people by the entrance, trying to put what just happened away. Having been here already, he sort of knew the layout, except there was a second floor, but he and Kuroo never had a need to go up there and he was too scared to venture up there by himself.

Bokuto and Akaashi led them to a group of people already standing at a table, some people with drinks and some people with finger food in front of them, glancing at them in between their conversations, and Kenma immediately felt regret upon coming here. Kuroo lets Bokuto and Akaashi go first, while he subtly hooks his pinky over Kenma’s to make sure he was okay, hiding their hands between them. 

Kenma catches the glint of a silver band on Kuroo’s hand as he presses closer to him.

“Kuroo! Who’s this?” A boy a little taller than him asked, his freckles prominent and pretty as they scatter across his cheeks, the dark grey flyaway above his head dancing cutely as he tilts it in curiosity.

Upon asking, despite the smothering music playing downstairs, the entire room falls silent as they wait for an answer from him. Kenma looks at his white shoes, unconsciously curling his pinky over Kuroo’s.

It was kind of a safety net.

“Hi, guys!” Kuroo brings his free hand to hold onto the back of his neck, knowing Kenma was uncomfortable with the attention on them, not expecting this, either. “Sorry for the wait, traffic was bad. Um...this is Kozume Kenma.”

And traffic was _not_ bad, but Kenma had found that Kuroo was good at lying when it really mattered, so he didn’t say anything. Kenma gives an even smaller nod to the group, nervous but still wanting to give off a good impression, and he mostly got polite nods back and a few smiles.

He thinks Kuroo must have told them he was really shy beforehand to save face.

He _was_ good.

Kuroo helped Kenma make his rounds before the next band got on stage, telling him that they had the floor to themselves for the remainder of the hour, so they should take advantage of the free stuff before their time was up. Kuroo was the only one out of the two of them that could nab on the free drinks deal, considering he turned twenty before they went on their trip, and Kenma was too scared to ask about anniversary freebies again in fear that the bartender would recognize his face.

But things seemed to work out miraculously, and as soon as Kuroo was on his way to go get a refill, Akaashi stops him, his hands in the pocket of his blue, oversized hoodie. It looked like it would be a better fit on someone like Bokuto.

“They ended that already. You’re literally a minute too late.”

Kuroo gasps, and Kenma stifles a smile at how dejected Kuroo looked, an empty cup of melting ice in his hand as the sleeve of his jacket pools over his wrist. He's only heard Akaashi’s voice a little before this, covered in loud EDM and alcohol from the party they went to in November, but he thinks it was very different from Bokuto’s. 

He thinks they fit each other, as Akaashi was the navy color that smothered skies during the nighttime and Bokuto was the swatch of burning gold during the day.

“For _real?”_

Akaashi nods and uses his middle finger to push his specs up his nose bridge, the frames glinting in the violet velvet of the venue, his expression never changing. “Either you get free water, or pay six hundred yen per drink.”

“I should just pay for them.” 

“The three yen in your bank account would tell you otherwise.”

Kuroo gasps again and grabs his shirt where his heart was, throwing his head back, his cheeks tinged with a soft pink from the alcohol. _“Akaashi!_ You’re killing me!”

Akaashi gives a tiny smile that wavers in the night at him, gunmetal eyes shining. “I have to go find Koutarou before our time’s up. Please don’t get lost, too.”

Kuroo makes a face that makes his cheeks jut out as he watches Akaashi leave, his hands going back to the hoodie pocket as he thinks of what to do next.

“So...no free stuff. I came here for nothing.” Kenma says, following Kuroo to the ledge of the floor they were on, able to see the stage from a higher angle. 

Kenma didn’t like this band’s sound as much as the last one. But he didn’t say anything negative about it. He runs his warm fingertips over the smooth metal of the rail, covered in a thick black paint that was beginning to erode from time and touch, the lights on the stage projecting soft white circles in the ceiling above them.

“ _Kyanma!”_ Kuroo makes an exasperated noise and holds his chest again, as if his heart truly had been bleeding through the slits in his fingers. “First Akaashi, now you? God, my heart is breaking.”

Kenma smiles, and he thinks of all the progress he could be making in Undertale, remembers the Snowdin theme from all the time he’s spent in that part of the game, coaxing him back home. Or maybe ordering more components for his PC. “I could have been playing Undertale. Or modding my computer.”

Kenma pouts, and Kuroo turns to face him, his empty cup still in his hand while the other one holds onto the railing. There was something in the way Kuroo looked a little sloppy, slightly tipsy from the drink, leaning over and looking at him like he truly was the menace Kenma had thought of him to be sometimes. His hair was messy and even darker in the lights of the venue, a dangerous composure to him that he didn’t even think twice about.

There were many sides to Kuroo, Kenma knew that.

He did not think he’s ever seen this one.

“Don’t you like spending time with me?” Kuroo whines, eyebrows coming together.

“I do. Just not with people I don’t know. They could be watching us. Or noticing us not acting like a couple. That’s...embarrassing.” Kenma looks at the floor, watching Kuroo’s scuffed black shoes step closer to him, before there’s a pressure on his cheeks and he’s suddenly looking up at him, his face squished in between Kuroo’s hand. 

“It is not.” Kuroo lightly squeezes Kenma’s cheeks once, then twice.

“What if they’re all onto us?” Kenma asks, eyebrows coming together in concern, Kuroo focusing his attention on anything that wasn't the important point.

He shows him a slanted grin.

“Come on, Ken! Lighten up.” He gently moves his hand with Kenma’s cheeks in it, wiggling his face, and Kenma feels like a child. “These people are nice. They think we’re dating, so we have to keep acting like it. At least for tonight.”

Kenma looked away from Kuroo, his lips pouted and it was kind of hard to see past his cheeks as they took up most of his vision, grumbling. “This is stupid. I wanna go home.”

“Kenma~.”

Kenma shakes his head as best as he can, eyes still trained on the floor as he tries to come up with an excuse to just go home, his social battery running out quicker than he thought. “Nuh-uh.”

Kuroo wants to say something, but he notices one of the girls from the union making her way towards them from the stairs behind Kenma's shoulder, her gaze watching her feet to make sure she didn’t fall over. He doesn’t really know what to do, and it’d make for awkward conversation had he suddenly let Kenma go and talk to her. 

He thinks it would make Kenma seem less important than one of his friends from the group, and that would raise suspicion.

"Someone is coming."

Kenma's eyes blow wide as he looks at him, holding onto his wrist. "What should we–"

He leans down to kiss Kenma’s forehead, gently letting go of him just in time for her to see them.

_Okay._

Kenma cannot breathe. And they’ve done that thing a bunch of times to keep up the facade of them being together, but holy _shit_ if it didn’t make Kenma’s head fill with air every time.

Kuroo doesn’t say anything, putting on a rollicking front for the girl as she smiles at him.

“Hey, Kuroo, Kozume!” Her voice was soft, and Kenma could barely hear over his heart about to explode in his chest. “We all have to leave soon. I just wanted to tell you in case you need to call someone. In like, hm...twenty minutes, maybe.”

“Ah, okay. Thank you!” Kuroo gives her an appreciative smile before she leaves.

They do their routine of saying goodbye together, just to milk the situation that much more (Kuroo trying his best to keep Kenma away from Bokuto this time, planning to yell at him when they went home), before leaving the venue, the air outside cooler than the stuffy atmosphere of the venue. The night dwindles and Kenma feels like there isn’t enough time in the world to be with Kuroo as he walks him to his car, not saying much as he thinks, the heat of Kuroo’s lips still branded on his skin.

And as Kenma drives back to his apartment, giddy and still coming down from the highs of tonight, he can’t help but wonder about the next outing he would invite him to again.


	15. liar

**kuro:** _other halfffff_

 **kuro:** _pls talk 2 me i am bored_

**_u know i love talking to u but_ **

**_today is wednesday_ **

**_arent u supposed to be tutoring?_ **

**kuro:** _yes but in an hour_

 **kuro:** _i wish u were here with me :/ i am miserable_

**_what did u do during the breaks before u met me_ **

**kuro:** _be miserable except i had nobody to text because bokuto has class_

**_oh_ **

**kuro:** _HEY can we go on a date on sunday_

 **kuro:** _PLSSS_

**_do u need me to come to another union thing that day??_ **

**kuro:** _no i just wanna hang out with u ;-;_

**_wait then why not saturday_ **

**kuro:** _oH i forgot to tell u_

 **kuro:** _i got a date with someone else for the ad on saturday_

 **kuro:** _that’s two people this month!!! how exciting!!! even though the first person cancelled :/_

**_oh_ **

**_yeah_ **

**_that is exciting_ **

**kuro:** _idk them yet but they seem nice_

 **kuro:** _holy shit i must be psychic they literally just texted me right now_

_**oh good** _

**_go text them instead then_ **

**_they will help u be less bored and u could get to know them_ **

**_two birds with one stone_ **

**_im kinda busy_ **

**kuro:** _:(((_

 **kuro:** _how come u dont like it when i bring up the ad_

 **kuro:** _every time i do u deflect_

 **kuro:** _do u hate me!_

**_KURO u are so dramatic pls_ **

**_no i do not hate u_ **

**_the ad is literally none of my business_ **

**_i just want u to make good decisions_ **

**_and not get taken advantage of_ **

**_plus we’re pretending to date each other when we both need it_**

**_i am no different from the people who contact u about the ad_ **

**_it has nothing to do with me_ **

**kuro:** _yeahhh but ur actually my friend_

 **kuro:** _idk these people i’m kinda scared of them u gotta support me_

**_i support u 1000%_ **

**_but i am still busy_ **

**_i will help u if u really need it though_ **

**_go text ur client_ **

**kuro:** _boooo ur no fun_

 **kuro:** _if i MUST_

 **kuro:** _goodbye kenma u have made me slightly less miserable during my break i appreciate u_

**_uh huh_ **

**_goodbye kuro_ **


	16. cliffs and highway drives

It’s been a few days.

Kenma would begin his spring semester next week, and after having that conversation with Kuroo and actually doing something about his school situation back in November, rather than ignoring it and hoping for the best, he was able to change his major without too many repercussions and looked forward to going back this time. 

It took him a little while to get rid of the frustration of wasting an entire year studying science, but he supposed it turned out okay in the end. 

He suspected Kuroo would exaggerate if he told him about his change of course regarding university (and he was correct, as Kuroo showed up right at his doorstep and insisted on taking him out to celebrate his decision).

And Kenma really didn’t want to, but what else was he going to do? Say no?

He found himself not being able to say no to Kuroo most of the time, anyway, so it didn’t really matter. 

Now, here he was, sitting on his rough-material couch with Hinata beside him, his sock covered feet on his lap while he thought into the tile beneath them.

“Kenma. Please stop spacing out. I am trying to spend quality time with you.” Hinata’s thin eyebrows come together in mock scolding, cheeks jutting out as he purses his lips thin to imitate a pout.

Kenma blinks and looks up at Hinata, scoffing. “We are.” He insists. “A wise man once said that best friends don’t have to explicitly talk to each other to communicate.”

Hinata freezes as he thinks into Kenma’s face, coming up short as he tried to put a name to that quote.

“Who the hell said that?”

Kenma simpers, mischief tinting his lips. “...Me.”

Hinata rolls his eyes and brings both of his legs up in the air from where he was lying on Kenma’s couch, the Netflix screen playing the trailer for a movie for what felt like the nth time since Hinata has been indecisive as to watch it or not. He grabs his sock-covered feet, balancing himself on the cushions underneath his back as he wobbled, his attention elsewhere before it bounds back to the conversation at hand.

“Then let’s talk about something that will interest you.” 

Kenma knew, with his tone and that stupid smirk on his face, that he would want to talk about–

“–talk about Kuroo.”

Kenma’s heart worries at the mention of his name, the tinge in Hinata’s voice enough to make him fear the inevitable. If he were to deflect, Hinata would catch on and embarrass him. If he were to talk about him, he was scared that Hinata would coax him to speak more than he intended to and know about how he felt before he even did. 

And _still_ embarrass him. 

Kenma knew that truth that Hinata was seeking, too, but like hell if he was going to tell him about it.

“I do not.” Kenma says, standing up and trying to get as far away from Hinata’s prying questions as possible. Maybe if he went to the kitchen to distract himself with the sweets in his fridge, he could pretend like he didn’t hear him. “I’m going to go get food.”

Hinata hums and turns his head to watch Kenma leave through the opening of the kitchen, the material of the couch cushions like sandpaper against his skin. 

He ignores it, a different significance coming to mind.

“Do you like Kuroo?” 

Kenma opens the refrigerator and stares at the jug of milk sitting on the shelf, thinking and still. The mere thought of that question revolving around Kuroo made his stomach sink, as if he really had been falling, like the roller coaster drops he liked so much. Kuroo was just as thrilling, and with the way his heart was thrumming in his chest at the mere thought, he would have said he was more than.

“Mmm...dunno.” Kenma shrugs and takes the top off of the glass cookie jar he kept his and Kuroo’s leftover ones in from the last time he came over, his appetite kind of lost now that he was thinking about him, trying to dodge the question, but answer it enough to get some kind of point across. _Any_ kind of point across. “Kinda. Maybe, I guess.” 

“Ah, so yes.” Hinata sighs wistfully from the living room, as if he was yearning for something. “Young love! How romantic!”

“Disgusting.” Kenma bites the cookie while the refrigerator cools over him, cheeks warm as the sugar dances over his tongue, giving him something else to think about that was not Kuroo.

Hinata didn’t let that happen for long. 

“In all seriousness...how come you don’t tell him?”

Kenma balks in horror, the ghosts of rejection haunting him as they snickered from behind the couch and pointed at him from where they lurked in the corners of his apartment. The thought makes him nauseous and he could think of a million things that he would rather do instead. 

“Tell him what?” Kenma asks, remembering the look on Lev’s face from back when they were in middle school, picturing Kuroo to do the same. He would lose yet another person he wanted to stay with if he did something like that. “So I could get rejected again? He would never ask, and...I’m not gonna bring it up.”

Hinata sighs heavily, and the cookie suddenly feels too heavy in Kenma’s hand. It was one Kuroo made. He thinks of throwing it in the trash to bypass the boy in question as much as possible for tonight.

And he finds it annoying how, even when Kuroo was not here, he took up more of Kenma’s headspace than he did when he _was_. 

“You’ve gotta let that _go_ , Kenma.” Hinata’s voice is balmy like lavender chalk, and Kenma knows he’s trying not to hit a nerve, but still appreciates him wrapping up his bluntness for a softer impact. “You can’t be afraid of giving your heart out to people forever.” 

Kenma sighs and shuts the refrigerator once nothing else piqued his interest, sitting on the floor and leaning against the island behind him, feeling somewhat uncomfortable that they were having this conversation now, his skin feeling itchy and his chest filling with tangled wires. Opening up, no matter who it was towards, made him feel awkward. He was perfectly fine keeping Kuroo locked up in another one of his treasure chests to come back to at another time, when nobody else would be asking about him.

“I guess.” Kenma says, thinking of just telling Hinata he would try harder, just to get him off his back. “...I’ll try.”

Kenma could almost see Hinata quirking his eyebrow. “Yeah. You don’t mean it.” 

He throws his head back and sighs into the air, trapped, as though someone had bound his wrists together and wouldn’t let him go unless he talked about what he was truly feeling. He could hear the chained shackles around his ankles clink together as he tried to step around it.

“Give me a break, Shouyou.” Kenma says, the frosting of the cookie beginning to melt and smear sticky crimson on the pad of his forefinger. “I’m just...going to let it pass.” 

Hinata shifts on the couch, and Kenma doesn’t hear anything for a moment, before there is the shuffling of his windbreaker jacket and his socks sliding against the tile, bounding towards him. Kenma sees him come into the kitchen, silent as he sits on the floor in front of Kenma and leans against the refrigerator against his back. 

Kenma looks at the ground.

“Do you think you’ll be happy if you do?” Hinata asks, tilting his head. 

Kenma knows he wouldn’t, so he shakes his head, doubts making their beds as they settled down in his thoughts. “No. But it would be bad if I didn’t.”

He doesn’t think there’s anything worse than wanting the impossible. It feels like he was stumbling into every roadblock he had put up for himself since middle school, Kuroo at the very end of the road, reaching for him. 

Winding and immeasurable roads, and he gets lost _every single time._

Hinata is quiet, running a hand through his hair as he thinks into the grit of the tile beneath them. It took a lot for Kenma to even get here, to acknowledge that something was different in him, that things went by a little too fast after meeting Kuroo. He didn’t really know what to call it, but it was _there_ and he was almost certain that it wouldn’t leave unless he did something about it, no matter how many times he tried to push it away, to run from it.

He was exhausted.

“H-hey, Shouyou…”

Hinata looks up at him, his eyes big and curious and brilliant against the lights of his kitchen, always being so patient with him, though they were constantly screaming at him to just _be honest_. It was hard, and Hinata knew it.

But Kenma knew what he wanted from him.

“What does...what does being in love feel like...to you?”

His throat is hot and his fingers are trembling so badly with the realization that he actively tries to keep the cookie from falling to the ground, stomach filled with rocks instead. Hinata blinks at him, tries to search his face for any kind of ruse, but is left with nothing to fall back against once Kenma keeps his eyes trained on the floor, his eyebrows worrying in the middle of his forehead and creating creases in his skin.

“Well…” Hinata looks at the ceiling, thinking for a moment, before he shrugs. “I don’t know. It feels like many things.”

“Like…” Kenma watches Hinata consider his question heavily, making a face as he taps his forefinger to his chin.

“Like…” Hinata suddenly quips. “You know when you’re driving down the highway at sunset?” He continues once Kenma nods, barely. “Like, to the beach or something. And the windows are down and the sun is hitting your face while the air outside is freezing, so you’re kind of...warm-cold. And the streets are hot and filled with orange from the sunset. And you’re singing with the radio blasting and it feels like you’re stuck in this weird dream but you don’t want to wake up from it. That weird feeling you get in your chest. It makes you smile a lot when you think about it.” Hinata shrugs as he thinks, an image of black hair and blue eyes that looked just like the beaches he loved dreaming of every now and then flashing through his head. 

“...Like...jumping off cliffs?” Kenma asks, and Hinata thinks some more, before he nods, his jacket sleeves pooling over his hands as he presses his palms against the floor. 

“Yeah, I’d say so! Like jumping off of cliffs into water. Like the one we went to last summer!"

Kenma hides his face in his free hand, letting the cookie fall to the floor as a hot blush overtakes his face, letting out a noise that sounds like balloons when they deflate.

“I am so _fucking_ fucked.”

Hinata giggles and lightly pushes Kenma’s leg with his foot, trying to lighten the mood. The air felt heavy, but Kenma knew there was no reason for it to. It was fine, so long as he kept it to himself.

Ignoring problems and hoping for the best, typically.

“You shouldn’t ignore it,” Hinata says, and Kenma wants to go back to the living room and watch a movie or something. Literally _anything else_ other than talking about this. “How will you know if you never try?”

“No way,” Kenma says, shutting his eyes and letting his head fall back against the cabinet again, lightly hitting it with a soft thud and it scrambles his thoughts up just a bit more. “There’s just no need to. It’d be one thing if the feeling was mutual, but...I don’t want to get rejected again.”

“I should smack you.” Hinata makes a face and Kenma’s eyes widen, the threat empty but Kenma believed Hinata was capable of such things if the time really called for it. “He literally tells you all the time that he enjoys your company. He calls you _other half,_ dude. Denial is not your best look, Kenma.”

Kenma huffs and looks back down at the cookie. He knows he was being difficult and Hinata, for once, was making some sense.

Almost too much sense. He didn’t like it.

“I feel like a damn schoolboy,” Kenma says. “Crushing over some dude.”

Hinata rolls his eyes and stands up, picking Kenma’s cookie off of the floor beside him to throw it away. “Well, at least you admitted it. It’s okay to have feelings, you know.”

Kenma groans. “Go away.”

“Fine. I’m gonna go order us sashimi.”

As Hinata leaves him to himself to think, he decides that the unknown truly was the biggest thing in the world to fear.

And Kuroo Tetsurou was right up there with it.


	17. phone calls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls beware there are some intentional spelling mistakes at the very end!

Kenma is screwing a component onto the motherboard that came in the mail this morning, when Kuroo calls him, trying to fix up his PC so he could finally play some decent games on them, rather than the free ones that came with his gaming software.

Immediately, his heart shrunk up in his chest, and he nearly dropped his screwdriver on the floor, his ring and middle fingers wrapped in small bandaids from the accidental cuts he’d gotten from assembling the sharper parts of the component.

He swallows, hanging his head and feeling small, trying to isolate his thoughts so that he could hold a decent conversation with Kuroo without feeling nervous. The more he thought, and the more Hinata had instilled some kind of weird awakening in him when it came to his feelings, the more he seemed to get more anxious in front of Kuroo than he ever had in his life. 

Kenma takes a giant breath that fills his chest and makes his tummy ache, before pressing the answer button.

“Hello?”

_“Kenma! Are you busy?”_

Kenma looks back up at his PC parts scattered across the top of his desk, screws and RGB light strands littering his desk. He had put away the entirety of today to build his computer, knowing it would probably bleed into the morning depending on how fast he worked. 

He was very busy.

“I am not busy,” Kenma says, his voice soft and Kuroo knew that Kenma was obviously lying with the way he sounded like thin string, unreliable and going to break easily if he toyed with the idea enough. “Are you...okay?”

_“Yes! I know you are probably doing something important, but I just wanted to quickly ask you if I could hang out with you before the date on Saturday.”_

Kenma feels like voids made up his chest and his heart had been swallowed at the mention, lost in one of them with no chance of finding it again. He keeps trying to forget about the fact that Kuroo still had that ad up, knowing that it was his own damn fault for thinking too much into this. 

He couldn’t screw it up now. 

“Y-yeah…” Kenma wants to tell him it was okay, that he could come over and they could talk and be friends and be normal while he helped him prepare for some date with some random girl. Hinata did the same thing for him when he went to see Kuroo for the first time, so this was fine.

It was _normal._

But he shakes his head at no one once he musters up enough courage to speak up, barely enough but it was _enough_. The phone is heavy in his hand, as if it held the outcome of every single branch stemming from Kenma’s fate, as if the world had taken itself into Kuroo on the other line.

_Come on, come on._

_“Thank you! I—”_

“A-actually, um…” Kenma looks to his feet as a blush is strewn across his cheeks, his heart pelting in his chest at the anticipation of how this would go, if he even let it go that way, feeling way more overwhelmed than he wanted to on a Tuesday night. “I don’t...think you should go on the date, Kuro.”

_“Hm? Why not?”_

Kuroo was oblivious, ready to listen and respond to him as if he had an important concern regarding him, and it made everything feel more difficult. Kenma clutches his phone tightly, feeling his hot cheeks against his fingers as he pressed the phone to his ear, feeling himself begin to struggle. “W-well, because...um…”

_“Are you okay?”_

“Just, please...don’t go on it.” The words are trapped in his throat, too tight for anything to really pass through as rose stems choke him up again, piercing and scraping against the muscles. Confrontation was never something he was good at, and he was hoping that this was enough for Kuroo to understand, that _somehow_ , Kuroo would get it. “Don’t.”

_“...Ken, you’re acting weird. What, do you think she’s gonna kill me or something?”_

Kuroo chuckles, and Kenma’s eyes are glossy, too nervous to tell him something like this. He listened to Hinata’s voice in the back of his head, thinking about how he would help him if he were here, even when he wasn’t. He’d gotten brave enough from the memory of them on his kitchen floor to get here. He was too deep in it now to turn back, and he really wanted to hang up, just tell Kuroo to forget it and never speak to him again.

_But would that make you happy?_

Would it?

“N-no. Not that, just…” Kenma swallows and takes a breath, making the strands of hair that fell in front of his face dance. 

This was too difficult.

_“I just don’t get why you’re telling me not to. You told me not to for the first one, too.”_

“Um…” Kenma could hear Kuroo’s change of tone, but he couldn’t tell if it was one of annoyance or not. It was too tough to read. 

Kuroo never got upset with him, not once. He remembers the holidays, when he accidentally spilled hot chocolate over his pants at his parents’ house, and despite Kenma wanting to disappear as he frantically tried to wipe it up, Kuroo kissed his cheek and told him not to worry about it. Or, when they were sleeping, and Kenma accidentally kicked him from a bad dream, Kuroo had laughed and hid him in his arms, making sure he fell asleep first to try and keep him from having another nightmare.

He never got upset with him. 

So what was happening?

_“You know we aren’t really together, right? I hope you didn’t get the wrong idea.”_

Kenma feels the floor beneath him cave in, much like that night before New Year’s, but this time, he wasn’t enjoying the fall so much. Humiliation hugs around his shoulders as his words sink in, and they are cold, not like the warm tides Kuroo normally spoke of. 

The water was freezing. 

“A-are you serious?” Kenma’s eyebrows worry in the middle of his forehead and he tries not to feel upset, _knowing this was his fault_ , but he just couldn’t get over it. 

He had spent so much time changing, so much time letting Kuroo in, so much time trying to _fix_ himself so could be the best person he could for someone like him. It feels like it was all for naught, that he was better off staying inside of the iron fortress that he had spent so long building, that he was better off shutting Kuroo out in the first place like he knew he should have. 

It’s like it truly was a waste of fucking time.

It’s like Kuroo didn’t care.

And what about what Bokuto said?

_“...Yes. We were just...it’s just business. You knew that, Ken. Didn't you?”_

Kenma swallows down a hot lump, feeling his chest tighten as the components in front of him blur into a muddled mess of colors. They were not as bright as they used to be.

“I-I knew that, but…” Kenma tries to find the right words to defend himself, to pull from the scenarios he’d already thought of to fix it, to try and keep Kuroo from getting the wrong idea.

And he had the right one, but Kenma clings onto the hope of acting like he didn’t.

_“...But...what? Is there something you’re not telling me?”_

Kenma doesn’t know what to say. This was too humiliating, too daunting to keep up with, and Kuroo didn’t explicitly say anything, but he could tell exactly what he was trying to say to him. Everything they’ve created up was crumbling too quickly, the fabricated utopia he’s created around him ruined, the skies falling and the sun splitting in half. 

Just like in middle school.

_“Did you...think we were really together?”_

“No! No...I knew we weren’t. I _know_ we aren’t. But…”

Kenma’s voice trails off once the stems in his throat grow and twist in their spaces, bleeding and messy and strangling him the more he tries to save himself. The last bits of pride he had were shattered at his feet like glass vases, and he was too scared to try and pick them up to piece them together again, not wanting to cut up his hands.

This was _too much._

_“I think...it’s best for me not to come over after all. Thank you...for thinking about it.”_

Kenma could tell what was coming, and despite wanting to hold on to Kuroo, he doesn’t know if it was good to fight for it again. 

“Wait, Kuro—”

_“And don’t…! Don’t, um...I...need space from you, I think.”_

“Space?” Kenma looks at the wall, a hot tear painting a clear, wet stripe down his red cheek, before it swings from his chin and onto the floor. “Wh-what?”

_“I think it’s best.”_

“What does that mean, Kuroo?” 

_“Just don’t call me again, Kenma!”_

Kenma pulls the phone away from his ear as if it had suddenly sent electricity into his skull, pressing the end call button with shaking fingers and feeling like he could puke his guts out, his hands going numb. There is a flood that starts off gentle, before it spills over the cusps of the dams he’d made. He brings his hands up to his face, trying to keep it in, trying to hide from his past self that was probably laughing at him now.

_I told you so, I told you so._

It was hard to breathe, hard to move. He hadn’t expected the call to impact him so much. He felt so incredibly stupid, letting himself fall for someone who he _knew_ was only pretending to love him. The facade felt so real, and it was easy to act on his end, too. 

He didn’t know where the lines got blurred, or when he crossed it. 

He reaches for his phone again, a tear dripping off of his forefinger as he gets to Hinata’s phone contact, hating the feeling of being powerless to himself, but he couldn’t stop. He was a flurry of frustration and misery, trying his best to calm down. His chest aches, and his fingers are numb. 

But he manages.

Barely, but he’s managing.

~❀~

**_shouyou_ **

**_are lyu busy_ **

**shouyou:** _kenma! hello my baby! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧_

 **shouyou:** _i am not too busy_

 **shouyou:** _whats up_

**_i amin trouble_ **

**_pleas eocm eover please_ **

**_cattail toruble_ **

**shouyou:** _kenma???_

 **shouyou:** _what happened_

 **shouyou:** _it’s gonna take me a couple of minutes to get there can you hold on for that long?_

 **shouyou:** _do you need me to facetime you or something while i walk there??_

**_nojust come_ **

**shouyou:** _what can i do for you from where i am_

**_i just got off of ghe phone woth him_ **

**_i knew it was a jstake_ **

**_im so fuckjugn studpi_ **

**_just come over if you can_ **

**_please_ **

**_if not itsokay_ **

**shouyou:** _leave the door unlocked i’m coming_

 **shouyou:** _im sorry_

 **_shouyou:_ ** _hang tight i love you_

(Kenma stares at those words, thinking of how easily they were said and how easily they meant nothing despite holding weight from Kuroo. He feels lucky enough that they held truth, coming from Hinata.

He hates how they made him feel.

_I love you, I love you, I love you.)_

~❀~

Hinata shows up at his house with his backpack half-open, telling Kenma he’d dropped what he was doing for him, somehow making him feel worse at the fact that he was taking up his time. 

Hinata had never seen Kenma look this miserable since middle school, when their friends became specters and left them, and they were the only two left. Even now, as Kenma lost yet someone else to something he’s tried so hard to repress, it still feels like it was just the two of them left. 

Kuroo had disappeared.

The night is hot and soggy with the threat of rain when Hinata comes.

Kenma had hid himself under the covers as an extra layer of protection from the world as the clouds dripped away, the sky darker than what he last remembered. Hinata let himself in and sat at the foot of the bed, looking at Kenma’s computer parts instead of his face and trying to think for him.

Kenma shuts his eyes, and there is a frown worrying his mouth as he ducks his head, trying not to break down again in front of Hinata. 

This was so embarrassing.

“Talk to me.” Hinata stares at Kenma’s sheets, trying to read his face from where he had them over his chin.

A light thunder drawls from the horizon, the air getting a bit warmer. 

“Um...we, like…” Kenma felt an ache in his chest again as Hinata put his bag on the floor, a few folders shifting and poking out of the part where it was opened. “Broke up, I guess.” Kenma shakes his head and with a weird expression, because they didn’t _really_ break up, but it felt just as bad. “Fake broke up, I guess.”

“Fake broke up?” Hinata asks, slipping beneath the covers with Kenma and facing him, trying to figure it out.

“Y-yeah, like...he said he needed space from me. And to not...call him again...” Kenma sighs heavily as the conversation sticks to his brain, making him that much more ashamed and angry and defeated and he wants to pull his hair out. 

He can’t look Hinata in the face, especially not after their talk in the kitchen.

Kenma smooths his hands over his irritated eyes, smearing more tears over his hot temples. 

“What does that mean?” Hinata asks, and Kenma shakes his head again, the question lost on him.

“I don’t know. He hates me, probably. I’m such an idiot.” Kenma cannot deal with being this uncomfortable, this uneasy and upset with someone who he knew didn’t deserve it. He sighs, curling his fingers in the sheets as his heart threatens to crack again, the heat behind his eyes stirring salted tears. “I should have shut him out as soon as w-we came back. I’m so _fucking_ stu–”

 _“Hey.”_ Hinata’s soft voice in his head is like a pick to an ice block, barely getting past the surface of his worries, but it helped a little. He takes a breath, and Hinata bites the inside of his bottom lip as he looked over Kenma, his normally calming eyes puffy with regret. “It’s okay to cry over it, Kenma. You didn’t know this would happen.”

He was right, but Kenma somehow felt like he did. He is quiet for a moment as the heavy wind outside takes to his empty chest. 

It’s hollow. 

“It’s just like middle school.”

Hinata’s heart falls at that, remembering how bad it was for Kenma back then, too. Dumb teenager things, now that he was thinking about it, yet it came full circle and held more weight now that they were adults.

Kenma hated being stuck in the loop.

“Well, if you want my two cents…” Hinata waits for Kenma to look back up at him, trying not to make it obvious that he felt bad for him, that he wished he didn’t have to go through something like this again after trying to escape it for so long. “I think that he’s seriously shitty for the way he reacted. But...he might not be the type who is able to express himself well, either. You go quiet when something makes you nervous, right?” Hinata looks at the stucco on Kenma’s ceiling, trying to give Kuroo the benefit of the doubt as he remembers how nice he was when they first met. “Maybe...he pushes people away, too, when it comes to stuff like this. Plus, it didn’t help that you guys got into this by just pretending. It’s kind of too messy to tell.”

Kenma looks away from him, and his expression is sheepish. “I kinda...set myself up with that one.”

“It’s not your fault, or his. Just a bad circumstance, I think.” Hinata makes a scowl-pout face as he looks to the door behind Kenma’s shoulder, his face falling as he ponders the situation. “But he’s still pretty shitty.”

“Either way, he said not to call him again. So...that’s that, I guess.” Kenma brings the covers up over his mouth this time, feeling it form another frown and he tries his best not to cry again.

Everything happened so suddenly, he was caught in the purgatory between hoping for the best and letting it go, not really in the right mind to pick a direction for his heart to go to. 

“I’m sorry, Kenma,” Hinata says, feeling like it was his fault, because Kenma had told him so many times how fine he was without saying a word to Kuroo about this, yet he still pushed him. This was definitely a risk that he should not have taken, after all, despite pushing him to do so.

And now that he had, everything turned to shit. Kenma should have expected this, but it still hurt.

Was he that unwanted, still?

Hinata scoots closer to Kenma, outstretching his arms, as if he could read what he was thinking. Kenma looks at him, and Hinata beams at him, a sliver of sunlight through the dark grey clouds that made up his head. He sighs and lets Hinata cover him from the world, listening to his heartbeat. 

It was slow.

Kenma was lucky to have him.

“I’m sorry this happened. I’ll stay here with you for as long as you need me to.” Hinata says, and he feels Kenma curl in on himself, bringing his hands over his eyes to stop himself from making a mess all over Hinata’s shirt. “I love you.”

He feels so lame to be crying like this, the situation punishing him a lot more than he thought. And despite hating the sympathy that had interlaced through Hinata’s voice, he figured that he needed it now. It doesn’t make him feel any better, but he needed it.

Kuroo was shitty.


	18. spring rain

With spring rain comes floods so destructive that there was no hope of repairing damages, depending on how bad you let them get.

Kenma didn’t _know_ how bad it could get.

There were holes in the roof and the wood was soaked and rotting away. He’d used up so much time in a paradise that had been built on a faulty foundation, that he didn’t notice his safe haven was being destroyed the more time he’d spent in it. And now, as he tried to go back to it, there wasn’t anything salvageable to build it back up again. 

He wasn’t going to try. It was capsized and sinking.

This sucked.

Though, he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it.

He wanted to be mad at Kuroo, wanted to be angry at him and have someone to blame other than himself. He knew what he was getting into, yet, he still let Kuroo in when he told himself he wouldn’t dare do something like that again.

But he thinks, despite how bad he felt now, it was more than worth it. He thinks that all the watercolor skies Kuroo’s painted for him, all the conversations that the stars would eavesdrop on once the moon rose, all of the roller coaster drops and butterfly flutters, were worth it.

Heartbreak was a lot like the wilt of flowers.

It was the brown tip of tulip petals when there wasn’t enough water, the cry of sunflowers when a heavy fog choked up the stratosphere. There was a struggle to keep going, to keep hoping for something to save it from dying the more time passed.

And while Kenma tried his very best to keep himself from crumbling to dust the more time passed without him, without reaching hope in some sort of closure, he realizes how stupid he’d been with him.

He doesn’t think he’s done enough. Maybe something as grandeur as the uphill climb to open up more was minuscule compared to what Kuroo expected from him. Maybe he was too mean to him. Maybe he was too distant.

Maybe he truly would never speak to him again, like Kuroo told him to.

But even then, he doesn’t regret it.

Kuroo felt like a dream, pretty and vivid, and Kenma often thought it was too good to be true with how easily they became close.

He had been right, after all.

And as he now looks at the world through a broken lens, the rain outside pouring and making him feel that much more flooded in the tiny space of his bedroom, he still sees Kuroo’s smiling face over several glass panes, each still more beautiful than the last, wilting flowers at his feet.

The butterflies dance with clipped wings, their colors lost, as petals fall off of the roses that bloomed in his chest.

~❀~

Kuroo wasn’t doing so well.

The thunder outside was loud, colliding with his thoughts, and despite trying to get Kenma out of his head, to think of how to go about everything from a more logical standpoint, he couldn’t ignore it.

There was something pulling at him, for the past few days, begging for him to go see him.

He was so used to spending all of this time with Kenma, to forgetting everything for a moment while Kenma led him through some of the most dreamy places the city had to offer them. Kuroo was so used to looking forward to _him_ , to floating above the stars with him, that the crash into the ground hurt a lot more than it should’ve.

He did not know how bad longing felt.

He had the date to go on, tonight, and while he’s looking at himself in the mirror, trying to ignore the dark circles beneath his swollen eyes that announced his losing sleep and crying over Kenma to anyone that saw him, trying to ignore the frown his lips seemed to gravitate to whenever he was too in his head, or the extra messiness in his hair that just didn’t look right anymore.

He would much rather be with him, instead of going on this dumb date with a girl he didn’t even care to help anymore. 

Kenma had been on his mind since Tuesday night, and he tried not to come up with any excuses, despite getting an earful from Bokuto and then another one from Akaashi the next morning. He decided then, that he was scared of him. He decided to run away from him, rather than face him head-on.

He knew why this hurt so much, too. He just didn’t want to confront it.

It felt like he had a huge, neon red sign above his head that called attention to his pain. Anyone who passed by could see how shameful he was for breaking Kenma’s heart like that, knowing what he went through just for it to start beating again. 

It made him that much more frustrated at himself.

Kuroo sighs heavily into the air, trying to collect the last bits of his conscience that hadn’t been swept away, to go put on a show and act like he was enjoying the time he was spending with the girl, to get it over with as quickly as possible.

_He did not know how bad longing felt._

It was a lot easier to fall in love with someone when you weren’t supposed to, and that was the worst part of it.

~❀~

Kenma has two more bandages over his fingertips as he finishes screwing a component into his case, the rain outside heavy and suffocating as it showered over the roof of his apartment.

He hadn’t found any interest in building his computer today, or yesterday, or the day before that. He felt like he was on autopilot, letting his legs carry him to class and back home, or to his bed or to the shower, just to start the cycle over again the next day.

He remembers how much he wished time would freeze over during the holidays, as he led Kuroo through town and sat on the roof to watch the stars with him at night.

Now, it couldn’t go by fast enough.

Thunder grumbled at him, soft and muffled against the steady fall of the rain outside, tapping the windows like the thrum of a thousand impatient fingers over desks. Kenma looks towards the window, interrupting his messy thoughts as he stops screwing the component in, biting the inside of his bottom lip as a thought slips through to him.

He remembers thinking that Kuroo was like rain, once. Spring rain, which was a lot warmer and more inviting, rather than the storm outside.

But still, rain.

Kenma used to like standing out in the rain, the drizzle light enough to not be too overbearing, so it was always okay for him. It was good.

He thinks it was just as desolate out there as it felt in here, and wonders what it would feel like to stand beneath the sky, cold, while thunder carries over him. He feels like he deserves it, that he’d spent so much time cradled in a warmth that spring brought during the winter, taking advantage of the feeling when the other person didn’t even have the same idea.

He thinks he deserves the sting from being so naive.

So Kenma sets his screwdriver down as another roar of thunder coaxes him outside, staring at the glass of the window for a moment, before letting his feet step over the wet pavement beneath him as he quickly makes it outside.

The sky was shrouded in black, the clouds smoky as rain blurred the stop sign near the intersection and the lights from the apartment complex across the street. Kenma takes a breath as ice slithers down his spine and soaks into his clothes, clinging to his skin as his hair sticks to his face, as if the world was in mourning.

He lets his feet take him to the road, always empty at this time because nobody ever came here unless they lived here, the rain gently singing back to him as it fell in droves. Wet tears of rain ribbon over his hot cheeks, and he shuts his eyes, relishing in the new and stark feeling the rain brought rather than the constant stagnancy he felt in his apartment.

It was different. It was distracting.

He feels a lot better, despite thinking he was going to be uncomfortable. It was almost freeing, to do something like this when most people would rather stay inside and read or sleep beneath the safety of their roofs. Grounded for a moment, he lets his head fall back a little, the rain falling over his eyelids and dripping off of the sleeves of his shirt. 

He thinks that maybe—

“Kenma?”

Kenma’s eyes blow wide as he feels his heart plummet, wiping his eyes as the rain makes everything blurry. Kenma could barely see him underneath the bronze glow of the streetlamps, and as he blinks, trying to think of what to do, of how fast he should run back into his apartment to shut him out again, he’s right in front of him.

Kuroo is there, black hair falling into his face, his eyes heavy as raindrops tangle in his lashes like morning dewdrops on grass blades. He looked almost as bad as Kenma had felt, and despite wanting to hide from him, he couldn’t help but stare back at him. The scene was something from a blockbuster, maybe hidden away in a frame at the back of a museum, to see Kuroo standing out in the rain, the streetlamps blurred and brazen behind him.

It was hard to move, hard to breathe. 

Kenma’s even more disoriented.

“Ken—”

“Why are you here?” Kenma asks, his voice soft and uncertain as his eyebrows come together, feeling himself getting a little angry at the fact that Kuroo had the nerve to come here, as if coming to help him study or make stupid cookies in his kitchen like they used to.

Thunder booms and Kuroo winces, his fingers curling into fists as he tries to keep it together. He was so terrified standing out here in the rain, dread settling in his gut as Kenma looked at him like he was the vilest thing the world had to offer him.

“I’m sorry.” 

Kenma wants to be cold, to put up more walls for Kuroo to keep running into. He wanted to tell him that a sorry wasn’t enough, that he was too late and he didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.

Everything would be a lie, anyway. He was too soft when it came to him.

“I couldn’t do it,” Kuroo says, and the rain is wintry as it saturates his clothes, making sharp goosebumps litter beneath his skin. “...I couldn’t go on the date tonight.”

Kenma is silent, and he looks at Kuroo to search for a place to begin. That startles him for a moment — if Kuroo really hadn’t gone on the date, then what does that mean? What stopped him? 

Why had he shown _up here?_

“I don’t...I don’t want to see you...” Kenma tells him, looking to the sidewalk and bringing an arm up to clutch the other, trying to keep himself from breaking in front of him as the words that left him were empty, holding no weight, but he hoped Kuroo believed they did enough for him to go. 

“Kenma, _please—_ ” Kuroo instinctively brought up a hand to his ear to go cover it as thunder blasts like dynamite above them, this one particularly loud and Kenma can’t stand to see him like that.

“Kuro..” 

“I’m _sorry_. Going into this, I didn’t think...” Kuroo was struggling, and Kenma was trying to figure out what it was, his thoughts jumbled as his heart beat against his chest, expectations and fears nestled between the fissures of it. 

He takes a breath. The street lamp flickers.

“I thought it would be easier to run from you. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but…” He shakes his head, running a hand through his slick hair, rain dripping off of the ends and there is a pained look on his face that Kenma never thought he’d see. 

"I get it. It was just a favor.” Kenma looks at the ground and Kuroo shakes his head.

“That’s not what I mean, Kenma, you know that.”

Kenma tightens his grip on his arm, wanting desperately to go back home and forget about this. He felt Kuroo’s eyes on him, like floodlights, and they were honest and peering and it made Kenma feel like all the progress he’s put into forgetting about Kuroo was for nothing.

He was tearing down his walls yet again.

Kuroo sighs heavily, and thunder rumbles overhead again. 

Kenma wanted him to just get to the point so he could go back inside and dry off, regretting his decision to leave his apartment tonight, feeling his grip slipping off of the stony front he’d put up. There was a bloody war between his head and his heart, screaming at him to just say it was okay so Kuroo didn’t have to be in the storm, so they could go back to normal. 

There were so many things he wanted to say to him, to yell at him, to push him to the ground and scream at him for hurting him so badly when he knew what he went through already.

He wants to go back inside.

“Kuro, please, just–”

“I’m in love with you, Kenma.”

Kenma stops, his face falling and his knees grow weak, wondering if he had heard correctly, or if it was just the world rubbing salt in the wound with thunder that was warped and too loud for him to make sense of him. Kuroo’s eyebrows come together as he looks at Kenma, hesitant, almost pleading, had he looked into him for too long.

“I don’t care if you’re still mad at me, or if you don’t feel the same. I don’t care if you still hate me after tonight. I had to tell you, before I lose you again.” Kuroo steps closer to him, and Kenma feels stuck to the ground, as if flypaper had been laid out. “I want to be with you. Not...to just _pretend_ anymore.”

Kenma searches his face for any kind of sign that this was another thing that he shouldn’t take seriously, that maybe Kuroo was being too rash and was saying anything to try and save them. 

He rummages, and chases, but comes up short.

“Wh-what?”

Kuroo reaches out to take Kenma’s hand, his pinky hooked over his own, and as he drops his gaze at their hands, remembering how it felt to touch Kuroo again and feeling the stone deteriorate beneath his grip. The silver band on Kuroo's right ringer glints in the warm lights of the streetlamps as Kuroo has his foot in the door, despite Kenma pushing back against him.

Kenma thinks back to his own as it calls out to them on his nightstand.

“I know I messed everything up, and I’m _sorry.”_ Kuroo gently tightens his pinky around Kenma’s. “I’m not going to run anymore. I’m so fucking in love with—”

Kenma cuts him off, his fingers curled in the material of Kuroo’s button-down as he kisses him tonight, feeling everything he’d been so desperate for come rushing back to him. Kuroo has his hands on Kenma’s waist, gentle as if he’d been made of cracked porcelain as he ducks down to him, his body breaking up into pixels under Kenma's touch. Kuroo pushes against him, his nose pressed between them as he kisses him again, and again, selfish in wanting to make up for lost time he’d spent being just as terrified, the rain comforting and protecting them from the rest of the world as they finally catch up to one another. 

Kenma used to think the roads were infinite, yet tonight, he thinks they all led back to Kuroo. 

He pulls back slightly once his lungs ache, pressing his forehead to Kuroo’s, the rain glossing over lips and skipping cheerfully down noses. Kenma can’t help but smile against Kuroo’s mouth, loving the feeling of holding him again, of kissing and loving him again, despite being cold and wet from the rain. 

Kuroo tells him he loves him.

“You're such an _asshole.”_

Kuroo giggles and kisses Kenma once more, and he grins as his stomach falls again, his butterflies fluttering, making a mess of him. Kuroo kisses his cheeks and his forehead and his nose and Kenma feels a heat seep into his cheeks, not used to this. 

He didn’t mind it.

There was a strange feeling in his chest, at the fact that Kuroo told him he loved him like this. He knew what it was like to not understand how to feel about something, and that sometimes people did sucky things to other people when they didn’t get it. 

And despite hating Kuroo for a little while, in those few days they weren’t together, he knows how it was for him on the other end.

Maybe he wasn’t so bad.

“I was serious about wanting to be with you. Seriously.” Kuroo reaches up to Kenma’s face and uses his fingers to softly brush away the wet hair that clung to his cheeks and his forehead and his nose, thinking that the nighttime looked pretty on him, too. “Is that...okay?”

Kenma looks at him and Kuroo feels the sun rise, despite the weather and the thunder that was brewing above them. Kenma's heart chases the feelings he’s been trying to push away for the past few days, pulling like magnetic ends, unrelenting and important as it blossoms once again.

Kuroo feels lucky to discover another aspect of Kenma’s love language as he trails his thumb over Kuroo's cheek, despite him not being too good with words.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s okay.”

And while they change into dry clothes, while Kenma watches the fireflies circle around Kuroo’s head and flicker again as they settle on his skin, as the wind blows away the fallen, dried, wilted petals from his favorite flowers, as the moon opens her arms for them again, he feels okay.

It would take some time to repair his safe haven, but he thinks it’s alright if Kuroo was with him, helping him build.


	19. white day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter wooo enjoy

“Hey, Kenma. Kenma~!”

It’s a morning in March. 

Okay, more like _the_ morning. Kenma’s least favorite holiday, and Kuroo’s second most favorite (next to Christmas, as he told him excitedly the night before).

Kenma and Kuroo liked to spend time in his bedroom, or his living room, or sometimes Kuroo’s bedroom and living room if Bokuto was out of the apartment, or didn't mind the intrusion. He found it a lot easier to look out of the window and watch the world with Kuroo, or to step outside and see what it had to offer them depending on the time of day.

And still, the sunset was always beautiful.

Spring was coming soon, the world blowing the last of its freezing breezes over Japan before then. 

Kenma couldn’t wait for the rain.

_“Kenma~.”_

He hears Kuroo’s voice beside him, and despite being awake enough to open his eyes and get out of bed if he _really_ pushed himself to, he would much rather fall back asleep while he still had Kuroo pressed against him and the blankets were up to his chin, warm. The sunlight streaming through the window turns the midnight black behind his eyelids orange, as Kuroo scoots away from him and gets out of bed, letting the light hit him. 

Kuroo, despite being excited, stops to look at him while he is still sleeping, while he was still for a moment.

His hair was messy and sprawled against his own black pillows, his dark eyelashes delicately curved, housing the most striking amber eyes Kuroo has ever seen. Sunlight pooled over his cheeks that carnations liked to bloom out of sometimes, that he would love to press his fingers into and kiss after not seeing him all day. 

Kenma was pretty in the mornings.

Ah, a little more than that.

He reminded him of the Northern Lights in Alaska. They were always so brilliant, violets and greens painting acrylic strokes across a navy sky. Kuroo loved to bask in all of his lights and darkness, an electric bolt of purple when he smiled, or the soft runs of pink when he spoke. 

He makes a point to visit there one day, to see just how they held up against Kenma’s colors. 

He thinks he would beat them anyway.

“D-don’t...look at me...like that,” Kenma tells him once he wakes, his eyes downcast as he brings the covers up over his nose, those same carnations that Kuroo loved so much blooming again, growing past the window and out of the door.

“You are so beautiful. That’s your own fault.” Kuroo says, and Kenma quickly hides his face completely beneath the covers, making him smile. 

He was so endearing.

"St-stop that."

“It’s White Day, today,” Kuroo says, sitting on the edge of the bed beside Kenma, and the other peeks out behind the covers at him, taking in his bedhead and how the sun hits him perfectly, dressing him in a soft corona while a crown of gold sits atop his head. 

He can’t look at him, the light slashing through his brown eyes and making him look ethereal as honey falls from his gaze.

Kenma does not know how he managed to get someone like that to love him.

“It is,” Kenma says, remembering the expensive chocolates he gave him exactly a month ago (and flushing an even deeper shade of red at the memory), and Kuroo gets up from the bed, after thinking a bit.

“...I have a gift for you,” Kuroo tells him, and he looks to the ground, beginning to feel sheepish when he thinks about what he made for him, hoping he’d like it at least. Kenma never seemed to dislike anything he ever gave him, so he hoped this would be the same. “Remember when I told you I liked to paint? Even though I am not very good at it.”

Kenma sits up, the blankets falling over his shirt as he watches Kuroo peel back his closet door across the room. 

“Yes. I remember.” Kenma smiles, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and scooting himself to the edge of the bed, the dark wood cold against his feet.

Kuroo is holding onto a canvas that was big enough for Kenma to hang on his wall, and there was a small piece of paper attached to the back of it with blue painter’s tape so as to not ruin the material. 

Kenma stands up slowly and feels his heart begin to beat quickly as Kuroo hands the canvas to him with the note-side up, eyes awake and curious. 

_Other half,_

_I was gonna say this out loud but I knew I would forget what I was going to say in the morning when I first saw you. It happens a lot. Sorry for this essay._

_But! I’m very happy to have met someone like you._

_You’re very quiet and reserved, and keep to yourself most of the time, yet you would stand out the most to me in a room full of people. I've found that I've had the most fun being in your company, despite the first impression of you coming off as closed off._

_And even then, that would still be okay._

_I sometimes like to think about your hometown that we visited last year. Out of the many places you’ve taken me, I’ve noticed the little pieces of your heart within them, and now I get what makes that town so special to you. You’re the colors of the stoplights when they change on main street, or the rustle of leaves from the oak trees at the park with the swingsets in them, or the fairy lights in the shrubs on the rooftop garden. Subtle, but you make the most normal and mundane things better, more lively, more beautiful._

_If that makes sense._

_My favorite place to be with you is your roof at night, because it serves as a very good memory for you despite the damage that clings to it. You were kind enough to let me in on your secret happy place, and integrate me into that same happy place. You calm me down, just like the spot on the roof grounds you._

_That’s what makes the roof so good._

_You once told me that you felt you could get lost on the roads that led out of your old neighborhood. At first, I didn’t really understand, but as time passed, as I started to know you, I got it._

_And now, I feel the same way about you._

_You are made of infinite roads that lead to different places, different aspects of your personality that I love to discover, with many pretty sights to see on the way to both everywhere and nowhere. I do get lost in you a lot, like when you’re thinking or playing video games or studying for your classes with those adorable glasses on._

_...If that makes sense._

_Thank you for letting me in, and allowing me down your own roads._

_Happy White Day, I love you!_

_I am still working on trying to get you the sun and stars and the moon and everything in between. But for now, I’ve settled on this. Please make a face like you’re happy to get this gift or else I’ll think that you hate it and actually cry._

_\- Love, Kuro_

Kenma’s eyes are glossy, and he smiles at the note, before turning it around.

On it was a blurred capture of a road within a neighborhood, as if he was dreaming and standing in the middle of the asphalt himself. The trees are gilded, and orange leaves fall from them, creating multiple paths in the distance that seemed to lead everywhere.

Paths that Kenma could get lost on, too. 

“I’m sorry if it’s ugly. I tried my best to follow the pictures on Google–”

Kenma tugs Kuroo’s shirt towards him, and snakes his arms over Kuroo’s waist, pressing his ear to his chest and listening to how fast it was racing. Despite being so far away from home, from the memories he wished to keep and the pain he hoped to forget about one day, he thinks Kuroo was a very close second. He kept the loveliest constellations and sunrises in his chest, held hope and forgiveness in his grin, bolts of lightning in his fingertips. 

“It is wonderful,” Kenma tells him, hoping Kuroo didn’t feel wetness on his shirt as he wipes it away, not used to being loved this much. “I love it a lot...and I love you a lot...so thank you.” 

Kuroo kisses his forehead twice with a relieved grin, and while Kenma indulges in the safety that was Kuroo, he tries to think of the best place to put this within his own bedroom for him to see it every day.

While Kenma finds Kuroo in his dreams again, while he listens to the trumpets in his voice blare and shout melodies into the room, as he smiles against his mouth and lets the morning cover over them, finding paradise once more in their little bubble, he hopes to hold on to him for as long as he can.

He didn’t mind getting lost in him so much, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! i hope it wasn't too tedious of a read and that you enjoyed it! if u didn't i am sorry ;-; please tell me how i can do better and i'll fix it!
> 
> my twitter is @kaashihq if u wanna be friends!! or, if you'd rather not, my cc is in my twt profile c:
> 
> thank you for sticking with this au ahhhh 
> 
> hmmm for now i think i'll take a break buttt i have that bkk rivals to lovers au planned to write as well as another au already published, so if you're into that pls come back and visit me here! see u around and thank you again for reading!!! <333


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